Milton's output as a writer is prodigious, and it reflects the many facets of life that he participated in. Although there is, naturally, a wide variety of opinions, I believe the two works for which he is best remembered are: his political/philosophical work "Areopagitica," written in 1644, when Milton was 36, and his epic poem "Paradise Lost" written in 1667.
Milton was a Christian and was moved profoundly by the Birth of Christ. His work entitled "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity" celebrates Christmas and provides an insight to why he was so moved by the idea of God having his son born to a virgin in a stable where animals were housed. Powerful too are the verses which celebrate the victory won over the world's evil clients.
Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity
by John Milton
This is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring:
For so the holy sages once did sing
That He our deadly forfeit should release,
And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.
That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty
Wherewith He wont at Heaven's high council-table
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 darksome house of mortal day.
Say, heavenly muse, shall not they sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse,no hymm, or solemn strain
to welcome Him to this His new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the sun's team united,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
So how from far, upon the eastern road,
The Star led wizards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode
And by it lowly at HIs blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join they voice unto the Angel choir
From out His secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.
THE HYMM
It was the winter wild,
While the heaven-born Child,
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to Him
Had doff'd her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her hasty paramour,
Only with speeches fair
She woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow;
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinful blame,
The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;
Confounded, that her Maker's eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
But He, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:
She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphere,
His ready harbinger,
With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing.
And waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
No war, or battle's sound
Was heard the world around:
The idle spear and shield were high uphund;
The hook'd chariot stood
Unstain'd with hostile blood,
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of Peace upon the Earth began:
The winds, with wonder wist,
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joys to the mild ocean=
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
The stars, with deep amaze
Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,
Heading one way their gracious influence;
And will not take their flight,
And hid his head for shame,
As his inferior flame
The now enlightened world no more should need;
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright throne, or burning axletree could bear.
The shepherds on the lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn
Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they than
That the mighty Pan
Was kindly come to live with them below;
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts to busy keep.
When such music sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet,
As never was by mortal finger shook-
Divinely-warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise.
As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
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 done,
And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.
At last surrounds their sight
A globe of circular light,
That with long beams the shamefaced night array'd;
The helmed Cherubim
And sworded Seraphim,
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd.
Harping in loud and solemn choir,
With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born Heir.
Such music (as 'tis said)
Before was never made
But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,
While the Creator great
His constellations set,
And the well-balanced world on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.
Ring out, yo crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our sense so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.
For if such holy song
Enrap our fancy long,
Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold,
And speckled 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.
Yea, Truth, and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between
Robed in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.
But wisest Fate says No;
This must not yet be so;
The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
So both Himself and us to glorify;
Yet first, to those yehain'd in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.
With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang
While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:
The aged Earth aghast
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre shake;
When, at the world's last session,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
And then at last our bliss
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,
And wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swings the scaly horror of his folded tail.
The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell,
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament:
From haunted spring and dale
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
In consecrated Earth,
And on the hold hearth,
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint,
In urns, and altars round,
A drear and dying sound
Affrights his Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat.
Peor and Baalim
Foresake their temples dim,
With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine,
And mooned Ashtaroth
Heaven's queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
The Lybie Hammon shrinks his horn,
In vain the Tyrian Maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.
And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dread,
His burning idol all of blackest hue,
In vain with cymbals' ring,
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove, or green,
Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud:
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest,
Nought but profoundest Heli can be his shroud,
In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark
The sable-soled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.
He feels from Juda's land
The dreaded Infant;s hand,
The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eye;
Nor all the gods beside,
Longer dare abide,
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our BABE, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.
So, when the sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,
Pillows hishead upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale,
Troop to the infernal jail,
Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;
And the yellow-skirted fays,
Fly after the night-steeds leaving their moon-loved maze.
But see! the Virgin blest,
Hath laid her Babe to rest;
Time is, our tedious song should here have ending;
Heaven's youngest teemed star
Hath fix'd her polish'd car,
Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending:
And all about the courtly stable,
Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.
For the record, I found this version in an old Anthology entitled "Immortal Poems of the English Language," edited by Oscar Williams, himself an outstanding poet and credited with being America's finest anthologist, although some may believe others can lay claim to that title also (Mr. Bloom, perhaps?). Those who favor Mr. Williams will get no serious argument from me inasmuch as he included at least one poem from the most overlooked British poet, Rupert Brooke (1887-1915). Brooke died young and sullied his reputation by also writing and submitting for publication some really bad poems. Be that as it may, some of his poems are about as good as poems can be. The 1952 Anthology I refer to here included Brooke's poem, "The Great Lover." If you are rolling your eyes at this reference to an obscure poet, let me interject that he wrote the words to the Fleetwood Mac song, "Dust." As good as Fleetwood Mac is, they sullied their own reputation by using Brooke's words without so much as mentioning his name. Strangely enough, the song leaves out the second half of the poem, and it is the second half that makes the work one of the greatest poems ever. The first half of the poem is almost morbid in its description of lovers post-mortem. It is on the older Mac album, "Bare Trees," and is sung at a slow pace without the guitar work one expects from Mac - even here in the pre-Nicks and pre-Buckingham portion of their history. And yet I find the song compelling. The song seems a tribute to the inevitability of death. Brooke's poem is anything but. The second half of Brooke's powerful poem wonders if two humans whose lives define love will be able to take that powerful human condition into the afterlife. The last verses wonder if dust from one dead lover, exposed after death to dust from the other, will somehow recognize each other because of love, thereby triumphing over death. Don't let the sober phrasing of this paragraph discourage you from finding Brooke's poem, which is one of the great Romantic poems of the English language. Brooke died young, as i said, at age 28, of sepsis which developed after a mosquito bite became infected. He was with the British Expeditionary Force bound for Gallipoli, which claimed thousands of allied dead and wounded. His actual death was aboard a French hospital ship anchored at Skyros, Greece, and he is buried on the island in a marked grave.
The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
So both Himself and us to glorify;
Yet first, to those yehain'd in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.
With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang
While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:
The aged Earth aghast
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre shake;
When, at the world's last session,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
And then at last our bliss
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,
And wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swings the scaly horror of his folded tail.
The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell,
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament:
From haunted spring and dale
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
In consecrated Earth,
And on the hold hearth,
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint,
In urns, and altars round,
A drear and dying sound
Affrights his Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat.
Peor and Baalim
Foresake their temples dim,
With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine,
And mooned Ashtaroth
Heaven's queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
The Lybie Hammon shrinks his horn,
In vain the Tyrian Maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.
And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dread,
His burning idol all of blackest hue,
In vain with cymbals' ring,
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove, or green,
Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud:
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest,
Nought but profoundest Heli can be his shroud,
In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark
The sable-soled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.
He feels from Juda's land
The dreaded Infant;s hand,
The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eye;
Nor all the gods beside,
Longer dare abide,
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our BABE, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.
So, when the sun in bed,
Curtain'd with cloudy red,
Pillows hishead upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale,
Troop to the infernal jail,
Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave;
And the yellow-skirted fays,
Fly after the night-steeds leaving their moon-loved maze.
But see! the Virgin blest,
Hath laid her Babe to rest;
Time is, our tedious song should here have ending;
Heaven's youngest teemed star
Hath fix'd her polish'd car,
Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending:
And all about the courtly stable,
Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.
For the record, I found this version in an old Anthology entitled "Immortal Poems of the English Language," edited by Oscar Williams, himself an outstanding poet and credited with being America's finest anthologist, although some may believe others can lay claim to that title also (Mr. Bloom, perhaps?). Those who favor Mr. Williams will get no serious argument from me inasmuch as he included at least one poem from the most overlooked British poet, Rupert Brooke (1887-1915). Brooke died young and sullied his reputation by also writing and submitting for publication some really bad poems. Be that as it may, some of his poems are about as good as poems can be. The 1952 Anthology I refer to here included Brooke's poem, "The Great Lover." If you are rolling your eyes at this reference to an obscure poet, let me interject that he wrote the words to the Fleetwood Mac song, "Dust." As good as Fleetwood Mac is, they sullied their own reputation by using Brooke's words without so much as mentioning his name. Strangely enough, the song leaves out the second half of the poem, and it is the second half that makes the work one of the greatest poems ever. The first half of the poem is almost morbid in its description of lovers post-mortem. It is on the older Mac album, "Bare Trees," and is sung at a slow pace without the guitar work one expects from Mac - even here in the pre-Nicks and pre-Buckingham portion of their history. And yet I find the song compelling. The song seems a tribute to the inevitability of death. Brooke's poem is anything but. The second half of Brooke's powerful poem wonders if two humans whose lives define love will be able to take that powerful human condition into the afterlife. The last verses wonder if dust from one dead lover, exposed after death to dust from the other, will somehow recognize each other because of love, thereby triumphing over death. Don't let the sober phrasing of this paragraph discourage you from finding Brooke's poem, which is one of the great Romantic poems of the English language. Brooke died young, as i said, at age 28, of sepsis which developed after a mosquito bite became infected. He was with the British Expeditionary Force bound for Gallipoli, which claimed thousands of allied dead and wounded. His actual death was aboard a French hospital ship anchored at Skyros, Greece, and he is buried on the island in a marked grave.
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