John Milton (1608-1674)

One of the greatest poets in English literature, Milton was urged by his
father to be steeped in the learning of the Renaissance. He learned to read Latin
and Greek as easily as English even while a child. In addition, he mastered
French, Italian and Hebrew. He wrote “L’Allegro” and “II Pensoroso” while
resting his father’s country house, “Lycidas”, the greatest of English pastorals
upon the death of a classmate, “Areopagitica” in defense of a free press, and
finally, “Paradise Lost”, his ambition of a lifetime.

Lycidas Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep

Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and
once more,
Ye Myrtles brown, with ivy never
sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and
crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the
mellowing year.
Bitter constraint and sad occasion
dear
Compels me to disturb your season
due;
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his
prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his
peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he
knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty
rhyme.
He must not float upon his watery bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching
wind,
Without the meed of some melodious
tear.
Begin, then, Sisters of the sacred well
That from beneath the seat of Jove
doth spring;
the string.
Hence with denial vain and coy
excuse:
So may some gentle Muse
With lucky words favour my destined
urn,
And as he passes turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable
shroud!
For we were nursed upon the self-
same hill,
Fed the same flock, by fountain,
shade, and rill;
Together both, ere the high lawns
appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the
Morn,
We drove a-field, and both together
heard
What time the grey-fly winds her
sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh
dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose at evening
bright
Toward heaven’s descent had sloped
his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not
mute;
Tempered to the oaten flute
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with
cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be
absent long;
And old Damœtas loved to hear our
song.
But, oh! the heavy change, now thou
art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must
return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and
desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine
o’ergrown,
And all their echoes, mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses
green,
Shall now no more be seen
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft
lays.
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds
that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay
wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd’s
ear.
Where were ye, Nymphs, when the
remorseless deep
Closed o’er the head of your loved
Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the
steep
Where your old Bards, the famous
Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her
wisard stream.
Ay me! I fondly dream
“Had ye been there,”… for what
could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that
Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, for her inchanting
son,
Whom universal nature did lament,
When, by the rout that made the
hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was
sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian
shore?
Alas! what boots it with uncessant
care
To tend the homely, slighted,
Shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless
Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra’s hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit
doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious
days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to
find,
And think to burst out into sudden
blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the
abhorrèd shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. “But not
the praise,”
Phœbus replied, and touched my
trembling ears:
“Fame is no plant that grows on
mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad
rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those
pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging
Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy
meed.”
O fountain Arethuse, and thou
honoured flood,
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crowned
with vocal reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher
mood.
But now my oat proceeds,
And listens to the Herald of the Sea,
That came in Neptune’s plea.
He asked the waves, and asked the
felon winds.
What hard mishap hath doomed this
gentle swain?
And questioned every gust of rugged
wings
That blows from off each beaked
promontory.
They knew not of his story;
And sage Hippotades their answer
brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon
strayed:
The air was calm, and on the level
brine
Sleek Panope with all her sisters
played.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with
curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of
thine.
Next Camus, reverend Sire, went
footing slow,
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet
sedge,
Inwrought with figures dim, and on
the edge
Like to that sanguine flower inscribed
with woe.
“Ah! who hath reft,” quoth he, “my
dearest pledge?”
Last came, and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals
twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts
amain).
He shook his mitred locks, and stern
bespake:—
“How well could I have spared for
thee, young swain,
Anow of such as, for their bellies’
sake,
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the
fold!
Of other care they little reckoning
make
Than how to scramble at the shearers’
feast,
And shove away the worthy bidden
guest.
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves
know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught
else the least
That to the faithful Herdman’s art
belongs!
What recks it them? What need they?
They are sped;
And, when they list, their lean and
fleshy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of
wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not
fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank And every flower that sad embroidery
mist they draw, wears;
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
spread; And daffadillies fill their cups with
Besides what the grim Wolf with tears,
privy paw To strew the laureate hearse where
Daily devours apace, and nothing Lycid lies.
said. For so, to interpose a little ease,
But that two-handed engine at the Let our frail thoughts dally with false
door surmise.
Stands ready to smite once, and smite Ay me! whilst thee the shores and
no more.” sounding seas
Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is Wash far away, where’er thy bones
past are hurled;
That shrunk thy streams; return, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Sicilian Muse, Where thou perhaps under the
And call the vales, and bid them whelming tide
hither cast Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous
Their bells and flowerets of a world;
thousand hues. Or whether thou, to our moist vows
Ye valleys low, where the mild denied,
whispers use Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old,
Of shades, and wanton winds, and Where the great Vision of the guarded
gushing brooks, mount
On whose fresh lap the swart star Looks toward Namancos and
sparely looks, Bayona’s hold.
Throw hither all your quaint Look homeward, Angel now, and
enamelled eyes, melt with ruth:
That on the green turf suck the And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless
honeyed showers, youth.
And purple all the ground with vernal Weep no more, woeful shepherds,
flowers. weep no more,
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
dies, Sunk though he be beneath the watery
The tufted crow-toe, and pale floor.
gessamine, So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
The white pink, and the pansy freaked And yet anon repairs his drooping
with jet, head,
The glowing violet, And tricks his beams, and with new-
The musk-rose, and the well-attired spangled ore
woodbine, Flames in the forehead of the morning
With cowslips wan that hang the sky:
pensive head,
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted
high,
Through the dear might of Him that
walked the waves,
Where, other groves and other
streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he
laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial
song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and
love.
There entertain him all the Saints
above,
In solemn troops, and sweet societies,
That sing, and singing in their glory
move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his
eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the Shepherds weep no
more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the
shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be
good
To all that wander in that perilous
flood.
Thus sang the uncouth Swain to the
oaks and rills,
While the still Morn went out with
sandals grey:
He touched the tender stops of various
quills,
With eager thought warbling his
Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretched out all
the hills,
And now was dropt into the western
bay.
At last he rose, and twitched his
mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods, and
pastures new
On His Being Arrived at the
Age of Twenty-Three
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief
of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three and
twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full
career,
But my late spring no bud or
blossom shew’th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive
the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so
near,
And inward ripeness doth much less
appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits
indu’th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or
slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure
even
To that same lot, however mean or
high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the
will of Heaven,
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Task-master’s
eye
On His Blindness
WhenI consider how my light is spent
E're half my days, in this dark world
and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to
hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my
Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and
present
My true account, least he returning
chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light
deny'd,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth
not need
Either man's work or his own gifts,
who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him
best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding
speed
And post o're Land and Ocean
without rest:
They also serve who only stand and
wait.
Paradise Lost
(from: Book 1)
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the
fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal
taste
Brought death into the World, and all
our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater
Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful
Seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the
secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd who first taught the
chosen seed
In the beginning how the heavens and
earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook
that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous song,
That with no middle flight intends to
soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it
pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or
rhyme.
And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost
prefer
Before all temples the upright heart
and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know’st; Thou
from the first
Wast present, and, with mighty wings
outspread,
Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast
Abyss,
And mad’st it pregnant: what in me is
dark
Illumine, what is low raise and
support;
That, to the highth of this great
argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
Say first—for Heaven hides nothing
from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell—say first
what cause
Moved our grand Parents, in that
happy state,
Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall
off
From their Creator, and transgress his
will
For one restraint, lords of the World
besides.
Who first seduced them to that foul
revolt?
The infernal Serpent; he it was
whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge,
deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his
pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with
all his host
Of rebel Angels, by whose aid,
aspiring
To set himself in glory above his
peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most
High,
If he opposed, and, with ambitious
aim
Against the throne and monarchy of
God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and
battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty
Power
Hurled headlong flaming from the
ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion,
down
To bottomless perdition, there to
dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to
arms.
Nine times the space that measures
day and night
To mortal men, he, with his horrid
crew,
Lay vanquished, rowling in the fiery
gulf,
Confounded, though immortal. But
his doom
Reserved him to more wrath; for now
the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting
pain
Torments him: round he throws his
baleful eyes,
That witnessed huge affliction and
dismay,
Mixed with obdurate pride and
steadfast hate.
At once, as far as Angel’s ken, he
views
The dismal situation waste and wild.
A dungeon horrible, on all sides
round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from
those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades,
where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never
comes
That comes to all, but torture without
end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur
unconsumed.
Such place Eternal Justice had
prepared
For those rebellious; here their prison
ordained
In utter darkness, and their portion
set,
As far removed from God and light of
Heaven
As from the centre thrice to the
utmost pole.
Oh how unlike the place from whence
they fell!
There the companions of his fall,
o’erwhelmed
With floods and whirlwinds of
tempestuous fire,
He soon discerns; and, weltering by
his side,
One next himself in power, and next
in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and
named
Beëlzebub. To whom the Arch-
Enemy,
And thence in Heaven called Satan,
with bold words
Breaking the horrid silence, thus
began:—
“If thou beest he—but Oh how
fallen! how changed
From him!—who, in the happy realms
of light,
Clothed with transcendent brightness,
didst outshine
Myriads, though bright—if he whom
mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal
hope
And hazard in the glorious enterprise,
Joined with me once, now misery hath
joined
In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest
From what highth fallen: so much the
stronger proved
He with his thunder: and till then who
knew
The force of those dire arms? Yet not
for those,
Nor what the potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent, or
change,
Though changed in outward lustre,
that fixed mind,
And high disdain from sense of
injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to
contend,
And to the fierce contention brought
along
Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me
preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power
opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of
Heaven,
And shook his throne. What though
the field be lost?
All is not lost—the unconquerable
will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome.
That glory never shall his wrath or
might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for
grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his
power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so
late
Doubted his empire—that were low
indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame
beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the
strength of Gods,
And this empyreal substance, cannot
fail;
Since, through experience of this
great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much
advanced,
We may with more successful hope
resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs’, and in the excess
of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of
Heaven.”
So spake the apostate Angel, though
in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep
despair;
And him thus answered soon his bold
Compeer;—
 “O Prince, O Chief of many thronèd
Powers
That led the embattled Seraphim to
war
Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful
deeds
Fearless, endangered Heaven’s
perpetual King,
And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or
chance, or fate!
Too well I see and rue the dire event
That, with sad overthrow and foul
defeat,
Hath lost us Heaven, and all this
mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as Gods and Heavenly
Essences
Can perish: for the mind and spirit
remains
Invincible, and vigour soon returns,
Though all our glory extinct, and
happy state
Here swallowed up in endless misery.
But what if He our Conqueror (whom
I now
Of force believe Almighty, since no
less
Than such could have o’erpowered
such force as ours)
Have left us this our spirit and
strength entire,
Strongly to suffer and support our
pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful
ire,
Or do him mightier service as his
thralls
By right of war, whate’er his business
be,
Here in the heart of Hell to work in
fire,
Or do errands in the gloomy Deep?
What can it then avail though yet we
feel
Strength undiminished, or eternal
being
To undergo eternal punishment?”
Whereto with speedy words the
Arch-Fiend replied:—
“Fallen Cherub, to be weak is
miserable,
Doing or suffering: but of this be
sure—
To do aught good never will be our
task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to His high will
Whom we resist. If then His
providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth
good,
Our labour must be to pervert that
end,
And out of good still to find means of
evil;
Which ofttimes may succeed so as
perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and
disturb
His inmost counsels from their
destined aim.