The Lantern

Book 629

PG

And infinite the sum of the Abyss,

And I have shown with what stupendous speed

Those bodies fly and how they're wont to pass

Amain through incommunicable space.

Therefore, 'tis not exceeding strange, if oft

In little time tempest and darkness cover

With bulking thunderheads hanging on high

The oceans and the lands, since everywhere

Through all the narrow tubes of yonder ether,

Yea, so to speak, through all the breathing-holes

Of the great upper-world encompassing,

There be for the primordial elements

Exits and entrances.

Now come, and how

The rainy moisture thickens into being

In the lofty clouds, and how upon the lands

'Tis then discharged in down-pour of large showers,

I will unfold. And first triumphantly

Will I persuade thee that up-rise together,

With clouds themselves, full many seeds of water

From out all things, and that they both increase--

Both clouds and water which is in the clouds--

In like proportion, as our frames increase

In like proportion with our blood, as well

As sweat or any moisture in our members.