The Complete Poetry of John Milton (38 page)
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Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
25
And seals obedience first with wounding smart
This day, but O ere long
Huge pangs and strong
Will peirce more neer his heart.
(
1633–37 ?
)
1
This poem of two fourteen-line verses, with single original lines 13-14 and 27-28, “reproduces as closely as possible the stanza used by Petrarch in his
canzone
to the Blessed Virgin” (Prince, p. 61). The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, eight days after birth in accord with Mosaic law, is Jan. 1.
2
The Powers were sixth in the celestial hierarchy, and the “winged Warriours” are the “helmed Cherubim” and “sworded Seraphim” of the
Nativity Ode
, 112-13; but Milton uses the terms to represent all the angels whose song Luke (ii. 13-14) quotes.
3
Besides the conceit of opposites, the line refers to the opinion that angels were incapable of performing such bodily functions.
4
This second stanza is an early statement of the high justice of God the Father and the mercy of the Son, who became man for man’s salvation (see
PL
III, 80–344; XII, 393-419).
5
Christ’s
kenosis;
see Phil. ii. 6-8.
6
that everlasting covenant made with Abraham when the rite of circumcision was instituted (Gen. xvii. 7, 10); it implies obedience to God’s will.
Blest pair of
Sirens
, pledges of Heav’ns joy,
Sphear-born, harmonious sisters, Voice, and Vers,
1
Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ
Dead things with inbreath’d sense able to peirce
5
And to our high-rais’d phantasie present
That undisturbed Song of pure concent
2
Ay sung before the saphire-colour’d throne
To him that sits theron
With saintly shout, and solemn Jubily,
10
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
Thir loud up-lifted Angel trumpets blow,
And the Cherubick hoast in thousand quires
Touch thir immortal harps of golden wires
With those just Spirits that wear victorious Palms,
15
Hymns devout and holy Psalms
Singing everlastingly;
That we on Earth with undiscording voice
May rightly answer that melodious noise
As once we did, till disproportion’d sin
20
Jarr’d against natures chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair musick that all creatures made
To thir great Lord, whose love thir motion sway’d
In perfect Diapason,
3
whilst they stood
In first obedience, and thir state of good.
25
O may we soon again renew that Song,
And keep in tune with Heav’n, till God e’re long
To his celestial consort
4
us unite
To live with him, and sing in endles morn of light.
(
1637
)
1
The nine celestial sirens assigned to the nine spheres of the universe (see
Nativity Ode
, n. 26) were identified with the Muses, here specifying Polyhymnia, the muse of sacred song, and Erato, the muse of lyric poetry. Milton fuses the harmonious music of the spheres and the song of the multitude with palms in their hands before the throne of God (Rev. vii. 9).
2
harmony.
3
consonance of the entire compass of tones in an octave, thus referring to the harmonious song of “all creatures” regardless of relative position in the chain of being.
4
both fellowship and company of music makers (“concert”). There is also a hint of wordplay on the meaning “marital association” (“consortium”) with Christ the Bridegroom.
1
In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Freind
,
2
unfortunatly drown’d in his passage from
Chester
on the
Irish
Seas, 1637. And by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted Clergy then in their height.
Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere,
I com to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
3
And with forc’t fingers rude
5
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear
Compells me to disturb your season due:
For
Lycidas
is dead, dead ere his prime
Young
Lycidas
, and hath not left his peer:
10
Who would not sing for
Lycidas?
he well knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rime.
He must not flote upon his watry bear
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind
Without the meed of som melodious tear.
15
Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well
4
That from beneath the seat of
Jove
doth spring,
Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,
So may som gentle muse
20
With lucky
5
words favour my destin’d urn,
And as he passes, turn
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
25
Together both ere the high Lawns appear’d
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afeild, and both together heard
What time the gray fly winds her sultry
6
horn,
Batning
7
our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
30
Oft till the star
8
that rose in Evning bright
Toward Heav’ns descent had sloapt his westring wheel.
Mean while the rurall ditties were not mute,
Temper’d to th’ oaten flute:
Rough Satyrs danc’t, and Fauns with clov’n heel
35
From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old
Damœtas
9
lov’d to hear our song.
But O the heavy change now thou art gone,
Now thou art gon, and never must return!
Thee shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves
40
With wild Thyme, and the gadding vine o’regrown,
And all thir echoes mourn.
The willows, and the hazel copses green
Shall now no more be seen,
Fanning thir joyous leavs to thy soft layes.
45
As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowrs that thir gay wardrope wear,
When first the white thorn blows;
Such,
Lycidas
, thy loss to shepherds ear.
50
Where were ye nymphs when the remorseless deep
Clos’d o’re the head of your lov’d
Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old bards the famous Drüids lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of
Mona
10
high,
55
Nor yet where
Deva
11
spreds her wisard stream:
Ay me, I fondly dream!
Had ye bin there, for what could that have don?
What could the Muse
12
her self that
Orpheus
bore,
The Muse her self for her inchanting son
60
Whom universal nature did lament,
When by the rout that made the hideous roar
His goary visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift
Hebrus
to the
Lesbian
shoar.
Alas! What boots it
13
with incessant care
65
To tend the homely slighted shepherds trade
And strictly meditate the thankless muse?
Were it not better don as others use,
To sport with
Amaryllis
in the shade,
Or with the tangles of
Neæra’s
hair?
70
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes;
But the fair guerdon
14
when we hope to find
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
75
Comes the blind
Fury
15
with th’ abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise,
Phœbus
repli’d, and touch’t my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
16
75
Set off to th’ world, nor in broad rumor lies,
But lives and spreds aloft by those pure
eyes
And perfet witness of all-judging
Jove
As
he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heav’n expect thy meed.
85
O Fountain
Arethuse
17
and thou honour’d flood,
Smooth-sliding
Mincius
, crown’d with vocall reeds,
That strain I heard was of a higher mood:
But now my oat
18
proceeds
And listens to the Herald of the Sea
19
90
That came in
Neptunes
plea,
He askt the waves, and askt the fellon winds,
What hard mishap hath doom’d this gentle swain?
And question’d every gust of rugged wings
That blows from off each beaked promontory,