Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danced, Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the Moon, But opposite in levelled west was set His mirror, with full face borrowing her light From him; for other light she needed none In that aspect, and still that distance keeps Till night; then in the east her turn she shines, Revolved on Heaven's great axle, and her reign With thousand lesser lights dividual holds, With thousand thousand stars that then appeared Spangling the hemisphere. Then first adorned With their bright luminaries, that set and rose, Glad evening and glad morn crowned the fourth day.--vii. 339-86. The first creation was Light, and Milton, according to Scriptural testimony, ascribes its origin to the bidding of the Creator. 'God said, Let there be light; and there was light!' The Sun he describes as a mighty sphere, but at first non-luminous. There was light, but no sun. The reason usually given in explanation of this phenomenon is, that the heavenly bodies were created at the same time as the Earth, but were rendered invisible by a canopy of vapour and cloud which enveloped the newly-formed globe; and that afterwards, when it dispersed, they appeared in the firmament, shining in all their pristine splendour. Milton does not, however, adhere to this view of things, but says that light for the first three days sojourned in a cloudy shrine or tabernacle, and was afterwards transplanted in the Sun, which became a great palace of light. He expresses himself in a somewhat similar manner in Book III., which opens with an address to Light--one of the most beautiful passages in the poem, in which he alludes to his blindness when expressing his thoughts and sentiments with regard to this ethereal medium, which conveys to us the pleasurable sensation of vision-- Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first-born! Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam, May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity--dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hear'st thou rather, pure Ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun, Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless Infinite.--iii. 1-12.