The Complete Poetry of John Milton (99 page)
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Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
560
Angelic harmonies: the Earth, the Air
Resounded (thou remember’st, for thou heardst),
The Heav’ns and all the Constellations rung,
The Planets in thir stations list’ning stood,
While the bright Pomp ascended jubilant.
565
Open, ye everlasting Gates, they sung,
Open, ye Heav’ns, your living dores;
60
let in
The great Creator from his work returnd
Magnificent, his Six days work, a World;
Open, and henceforth oft; for God will deigne
570
To visit oft the dwellings of just Men
Delighted, and with frequent intercourse
Thither will send his winged Messengers
On errands of supernal Grace. So sung
The glorious Train ascending: He through Heav’n,
575
That open’d wide her blazing Portals, led
To Gods Eternal house direct the way,
A broad and ample rode, whose dust is Gold
And pavement Starrs, as Starrs to thee appeer,
Seen in the Galaxie, that Milkie way
580
Which nightly as a circling Zone thou seest
Powderd with Starrs. And now on Earth the Seventh
Eev’ning arose in
Eden
, for the Sun
Was set, and twilight from the East came on,
Forerunning Night; when at the holy mount
585
Of Heav’ns high-seated top, th’ Impereal Throne
Of Godhead, fixt for ever firm and sure,
The Filial Power arriv’d, and sate him down
With his great Father, for he also went
Invisible, yet staid (such priviledge
590
Hath Omnipresence) and the work ordain’d,
Author and end of all things, and from work
Now resting, bless’d and hallowd the Seav’nth day,
As resting on that day from all his work,
But not in silence holy kept; the Harp
595
Had work and rested not, the solemn Pipe,
And Dulcimer, all Organs of sweet stop,
All sounds on Fret
61
by String or Golden Wire
Temper’d soft Tunings, intermixt with Voice
Choral or Unison:
62
of incense Clouds
600
Fuming from Golden Censers hid the Mount.
Creation and the Six dayes acts they sung,
Great are thy works,
Jehovah
, infinite
Thy power; what thought can measure thee or tongue
Relate thee; greater now in thy return
605
Then from the Giant Angels; thee that day
Thy Thunders magnifi’d; but to create
Is greater then created to destroy.
Who can impair thee, mighty King, or bound
Thy Empire? easily the proud attempt
610
Of Spirits apostat and thir Counsels vain
Thou hast repeld, while impiously they thought
Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw
The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks
To lessen thee, against his purpose serves
615
To manifest the more thy might: his evil
Thou usest, and from thence creat’st more good.
Witness this new-made World, another Heav’n
From Heaven Gate not farr, founded in view
On the cleer
Hyaline
, the Glassie Sea;
63
620
Of amplitude almost immense,
64
with Starrs
Numerous, and every Starr perhaps a World
Of destind habitation; but thou know’st
Thir seasons: among these the seat of men,
Earth with her nether Ocean circumfus’d,
625
Thir pleasant dwelling place. Thrice happie men,
And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanc’t,
Created in his Image, there to dwell
And worship him, and in reward to rule
Over his Works, on Earth, in Sea, or Air,
630
And multiply a Race of Worshippers
Holy and just: thrice happie if they know
Thir happiness, and persevere upright.
So sung they, and the Empyrean rung,
With
Halleluiahs:
Thus was Sabbath kept.
635
And thy request think now fulfill’d, that ask’d
How first this World and face of things began,
And what before thy memorie was don
From the beginning, that posteritie
Informd by thee might know; if else thou seekst
640
Aught, not surpassing human measure, say.
1
usually identified as the Muse of astronomy, the meaning of whose name (“heavenly”) emphasizes Milton’s invoking of divine inspiration. In Prov. viii Wisdom, from “the top of high places,” tells the sons of men of the Creation, the subject of this book. But here the reference seems to be to the Spirit of God as in the invocations in I, III, and IX.
2
For Pegasus and Bellerophon (l. 18), see
Rouse
, n. 8.
3
associate, live.
4
the field on which Bellerophon landed.
5
straying, wandering.
6
as opposed to the first half of the poem dealing with the invisible, eternal, formless worlds of Heaven and Hell.
7
not transported above the primum mobile.
8
a temporal reference to the period of the Restoration (1660 and ff.); the “darkness” (l. 27) is his blindness. Eccles. xii. 1: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh.…”
9
Orpheus; see
Lycidas
, n. 12.
10
marital partner (from “consortium”).
11
surged back.
12
called back.
13
both “red” with moving fires (hinting at its origin) and now “adorned with flourishing vegetation.”
14
finished.
15
unseen (since it lies outside the primum mobile) and formless.
16
keep watch.
17
Venus, called Lucifer as the morning star.
18
Job vii. 10: “Neither shall his place know him any more.”
19
foolishly.
20
scattered; “fill all those relinquished areas left uninhabited by those who joined Satan.”
21
God is not limited even though he withdraws his influence from part of infinitude, thus leaving Chaos.
22
everlasting.
23
all-creating.
24
Prov. viii. 27: “When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth.”
25
both hellish (from Tartarus) and sedimentary (from the incrustation of the residue from grapes in wine-making).
26
formed them into a rounded mass (the Earth). Since the Earth is spherical at creation and composed of all things like, it conforms to concepts of perfection. First light (Day) is united and then each of the four elements: air, earth, water, and fire.
27
Interwoven through l. 593 are quotations from Genesis (i. 3-31, ii. 1-9, 15-17).
28
ether, the fifth or highest essence (element) of life.
29
The Son (“That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable, / And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,”
Nativity Ode
, 8-9) came in a “Poor fleshly Tabernacle” (
Passion
, 17).
30
the heavens stretching from the seas of the universe (“Round,” l. 267) to the Crystalline (watery) Sphere (“Ocean,” l. 271); see Gen. i. 6-7.
31
rolled up, infolded.
32
both “expansive” and “essential.”
33
fertilizing.
34
both “speed” and “drops of rain.”
35
carried along with great haste.
36
erratic movement (like a serpent).
37
watery course.
38
entwined.
39
budded.
40
groups of trees or shrubbery.
41
Galileo had discovered the phases of Venus.
42
absorption of the sun’s light.
43
divided (amongst the “thousand lesser Lights”).
44
any creeping thing (but including fish).
45
schools of fish that make a shoal in the sea (l. 403).
46
flecked.
47
on the smooth sea.
48
natural.
49
fully feathered their wings.
50
Seen from afar, the birds seemed to be a cloud.
51
separately.
52
spreading out.
53
lives.
54
streaked with darker color.
55
See Job xl. 15-24.
56
hippopotamus.
57
body; “involv’d”: gathered in their folds to obscure them.
58
Gen. iii. 1: “Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” The same line occurs as IX, 86, 560.
59
the object.
60
Ps. xxiv. 7: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.”
61
a stop on a stringed instrument.
62
solo.
63
Gordon O’Brien discusses this recurrent image (in
Renaissance Poetics and the Problem of Power
, Chicago, 1956, especially pp. 113–15) as a correspondence between the mind of man (the “clear spirit” of
Lycidas
, 70) and the frame of heaven; derived from Rev. xv. 2, the figure embodies the concept of knowledge and the concept of power which come from God and are reflected back to Heaven.
64
unmeasurable.
THE ARGUMENT
Adam
inquires concerning celestial Motions, is doubtfully answer’d, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge:
Adam
assents, and still desirous to detain
Raphael
, relates to him what he remember’d since his own Creation, his placing in Paradise, his talk with God concerning solitude and fit society, his first meeting and Nuptials with
Eve
, his discourse with the Angel thereupon; who after admonitions repeated departs.
The Angel ended, and in
Adams
Ear
So Charming left his voice, that he a while
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixt to hear;
Then as new wak’t thus gratefully repli’d.
5
What thanks sufficient, or what recompence
Equal have I to render thee, Divine
Hystorian, who thus largely hast allayd
The thirst I had of knowledge, and voutsaf’t
This friendly condescention to relate