Complete Works of John Milton. Illustrated

Paradise Lost, Areopagitica, Lycidas and others

John Milton

• Publisher: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780880030199
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

John Milton wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). Written in blank verse, Paradise Lost is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever written.He achieved international renown within his lifetime; his celebrated Areopagitica (1644), written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.Milton was a "passionately individual Christian Humanist poet." He appears on the pages of seventeenth century English Puritanism, an age characterized as "the world turned upside down." He was a Puritan and yet was unwilling to surrender conscience to party positions on public policy.Poets such as William Blake, William Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy revered him.Contents: The Poetry CollectionsPOEMS, 1645PARADISE LOSTPARADISE REGAINEDSAMSON AGONISTESPOEMS, 1673VERSES FROM MILTON'S COMMONPLACE BOOKThe Prose WorksAREOPAGITICATHE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCEON EDUCATIONCOLASTERIONTHE TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATESA TREATISE OF CIVIL POWERDE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA

The Poetry Collections

POEMS, 1645

ON THE MORNING OF CHRISTS NATIVITY

Compos’d 1629

I

This is the Month, and this the happy morn

Wherein the Son of Heav’ns eternal King,

Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,

Our great redemption from above did bring;

For so the holy sages once did sing, 5

That he our deadly forfeit should release,

And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,

And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,

Wherwith he wont at Heav’ns high Councel-Table, 10

To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and here with us to be,

Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,

And chose with us a darksom House of mortal Clay.

III

Say Heav’nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein 15

Afford a present to the Infant God?

Hast thou no vers, no hymn, or solemn strein,

To welcom him to this his new abode,

Now while the Heav’n by the Suns team untrod,

Hath took no print of the approching light, 20

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV

See how from far upon the Eastern rode

The Star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet:

O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; 25

Have thou the honour first, thy Lord to greet,

And joyn thy voice unto the Angel Quire,

From out his secret Altar toucht with hallow’d fire.

THE HYMN

I

It was the Winter wilde,

While the Heav’n-born-childe, 30

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

Nature in aw to him

Had doff’t her gawdy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize:

It was no season then for her 35

To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.

II

Onely with speeches fair

She woo’s the gentle Air

To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow,

And on her naked shame, 40

Pollute with sinfull blame,

The Saintly Vail of Maiden white to throw,

Confounded, that her Makers eyes

Should look so neer upon her foul deformities.

III

But he her fears to cease, 45

Sent down the meek-eyd Peace,

She crown’d with Olive green, came softly sliding

Down through the turning sphear,

His ready Harbinger,

With Turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, 50

And waving wide her mirtle wand,

She strikes a universall Peace through Sea and Land.

IV

No War, or Battails sound

Was heard the World around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung; 55

The hooked Chariot stood

Unstain’d with hostile blood,

The Trumpet spake not to the armed throng,

And Kings sate still with awfull eye,

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. 60

V

But peacefull was the night

Wherin the Prince of light

His raign of peace upon the earth began:

The Windes, with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kist, 65

Whispering new joyes to the milde Ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While Birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

VI

The Stars with deep amaze

Stand fixt in stedfast gaze, 70

Bending one way their pretious influence,

And will not take their flight,

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warn’d them thence;

But in their glimmering Orbs did glow, 75

Untill their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

VII

And though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

The Sun himself with-held his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame, 80

As his inferiour flame,

The new-enlightn’d world no more should need;

He saw a greater Sun appear

Then his bright Throne, or burning Axletree could bear.

VIII

The Shepherds on the Lawn, 85

Or ere the point of dawn,

Sate simply chatting in a rustick row;

Full little thought they than,

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly com to live with them below; 90

Perhaps their loves, or els their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busie keep.

IX

When such musick sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet,

As never was by mortall finger strook, 95

Divinely-warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise,

As all their souls in blisfull rapture took:

The Air such pleasure loth to lose,

With thousand echo’s still prolongs each heav’nly close. 100

X

Nature that heard such sound

Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia’s seat, the Airy region thrilling,

Now was almost won

To think her part was don, 105

And that her raign had here its last fulfilling;

She knew such harmony alone

Could hold all Heav’n and Earth in happier union.

XI

At last surrounds their sight

A Globe of circular light, 110

That with long beams the shame-fac’t night array’d,

The helmed Cherubim

And sworded Seraphim

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaid,

Harping in loud and solemn quire, 115

With unexpressive notes to Heav’ns new-born Heir.

XII

Such Musick (as ‘tis said)

Before was never made,

But when of old the sons of morning sung,

While the Creator Great 120

His constellations set,

And the well-balanc’t world on hinges hung,

And cast the dark foundations deep,

And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII

Ring out ye Crystall sphears, 125

Once bless our human ears,

(If ye have power to touch our senses so)

And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time;

And let the Base of Heav’ns deep Organ blow, 130

And with your ninefold harmony

Make up full consort to th’ Angelike symphony.

XIV

For if such holy Song

Enwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold, 135

And speckl’d vanity

Will sicken soon and die,

And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould,

And Hell itself will pass away,

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. 140

XV

Yea Truth, and Justice then

Will down return to men,

Th’ enameld Arras of the Rainbow wearing,

And Mercy set between,

Thron’d in Celestiall sheen, 145

With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing,

And Heav’n as at som festivall,

Will open wide the Gates of her high Palace Hall.

XVI

But wisest Fate sayes no,

This must not yet be so, 150

The Babe lies yet in smiling Infancy,

That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss;

So both himself and us to glorifie:

Yet first to those ychain’d in sleep, 155

The wakefull trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

XVII

With such a horrid clang

As on mount Sinai rang

While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:

The aged Earth agast 160

With terrour of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the center shake,

When at the worlds last session,

The dreadfull Judge in middle Air shall spread his throne.

XVIII

And then at last our bliss 165

Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for from this happy day

Th’ old Dragon under ground,

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway, 170

And wrath to see his Kingdom fail,

Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail.

XIX

The Oracles are dumm,

No voice or hideous humm

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 175

Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos leaving.

No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Inspire’s the pale-ey’d Priest from the prophetic cell. 180

XX

The lonely mountains o’re,

And the resounding shore,

A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament;

From haunted spring and dale

Edg’d with poplar pale, 185

The parting Genius is with sighing sent,

With flowre-inwov’n tresses torn

The Nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

XXI

In consecrated Earth,

And on the holy Hearth, 190

The Lars, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint,

In Urns, and Altars round,

A drear, and dying sound

Affrights the Flamins at their service quaint;

And the chill Marble seems to sweat, 195

While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII

Peor, and Baalim,

Forsake their Temples dim,

With that twise-batter’d god of Palestine,

And mooned Ashtaroth, 200

Heav’ns Queen and Mother both,

Now sits not girt with Tapers holy shine,

The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn,

In vain the Tyrian Maids their wounded Thamuz mourn.

XXIII

And sullen Moloch fled, 205

Hath left in shadows dred.

His burning Idol all of blackest hue,

In vain with Cymbals ring,

They call the grisly king,

In dismall dance about the furnace blue; 210

The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

Isis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis hast.

XXIV

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian Grove, or Green,

Trampling the unshowr’d Grasse with lowings loud: 215

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest,

Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud:

In vain with Timbrel’d Anthems dark

The sable-stoled Sorcerers bear his worshipt Ark. 220

XXV

He feels from Juda’s land

The dredded Infants hand,

The rayes of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;

Nor all the gods beside,

Longer dare abide, 225

Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

Our Babe, to shew his Godhead true,

Can in his swadling bands controul the damned crew.

XXVI

So when the Sun in bed,

Curtain’d with cloudy red, 230

Pillows his chin upon an Orient wave.

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to th’ infernall jail,

Each fetter’d Ghost slips to his severall grave,

And the yellow-skirted Fayes 235

Fly after the Night-steeds, leaving their Moon-lov’d maze.

XXVII

But see the Virgin blest,

Hath laid her Babe to rest.

Time is our tedious Song should here have ending,

Heav’ns youngest-teemed Star 240

Hath fixt her polisht Car,

Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending.

And all about the Courtly Stable,

Bright-harnest Angels sit in order serviceable.

A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM 114

This and the following Psalm were don by the Author at fifteen yeers old.

WHen the blest seed of Terah’s faithfull Son,

After long toil their liberty had won,

And past from Pharian fields to Canaan Land,

Led by the strength of t...