by John Milton
And mad’st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,
5 Driving dumb silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
10 I know my tongue but little grace can do thee.
Thou need’st not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packed the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be served up last.
15 I pray thee then deny me not thy aid
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure;
Not those new-fangled toys, and trimming slight
20 Which takes our late fantastics with delight,
But cull those richest robes, and gay’st attire
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
25 And weary of their place do only stay
Till thou hast decked them in thy best array;
That so they may without suspect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair assembly’s ears;
Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,
30 Thy service in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav’n’s door
35 Look in, and see each blissful deity
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings
To th’ touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire:
40 Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,
And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow and lofts of pilèd thunder,
May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,
In Heav’n’s defiance mustering all his waves;
45 Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at King Alcinous’ feast,
50 While sad Ulysses’ soul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity.
But fie my wand’ring Muse how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way;
55 Thou know’st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy Predicament:
Then quick about thy purposed business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.
Then ENS is represented as father of the Predicaments his ten sons, whereof the eldest stood for SUBSTANCE with his Canons, which ENS thus speaking, explains.
Good luck befriend thee son; for at thy birth
60 The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth;
Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie;
And sweetly singing round about thy bed
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
65 She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible,
Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crookèd age,
70 That far events full wisely could presage,
And in time’s long and dark prospective glass,
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass;
Your son, said she, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
75 ’er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under;
In worth and excellence he shall outgo them,
80 Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,
And peace shall lull him in her flow’ry lap;
85 Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar:
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
90 Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?
The next, QUANTITY and QUALITY, spake in prose, then RELATION was called by his name
Rivers arise; whether thou be the son,
Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Dun,
Or Trent, who like some Earth-born Giant spreads
His thirty arms along th’ indented meads,
95 Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden’s death,
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lea,
Or coaly Tyne, or ancient hallowed Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian’s name,
100 Or Medway smooth, or royal-towered Thame.
The rest was prose
Sonnet XI
A book was writ of late called Tetrachordon;
And woven close, both matter, form and style;
The subject new: it walked the town a while,
Numb’ring good intellects; now seldom pored on.
5 Cries the stall-reader, Bless us! what a word on
A title page is this! and some in file
Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile-
End Green. Why is it harder sirs than Gordon,
Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?
10 Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek
That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.
Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheke,
Hated not learning worse than toad or asp,
When thou taught’st Cambridge and King Edward Greek.
Sonnet XII
On the same
I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs.
5 As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs
Railed at Latona’s twin-born progeny
Which after held the sun and moon in fee.
But this is got by casting pearl to hogs;
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
10 And still revolt when truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry Liberty;
For who loves that, must first be wise and good;
But from that mark how far they rove we see
For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood.
Sonnet XIII
To Mr H. Lames, on his Airs
Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas’ ears, committing short and long,
5 Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng,
With praise enough for envy to look wan;
To after age thou shalt be writ the man
That with smooth
air couldst humour best our tongue.
Thou honour’st verse, and verse must lend her wing
10 To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus’ choir
That tun’st their happiest lines in hymn, or story.
Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.
Sonnet XIV
When Faith and Love which parted from thee never,
Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthy load
Of death, called life; which us from life doth sever.
5 Thy works and alms and all thy good endeavour
Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod;
But as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever.
Love led them on, and Faith who knew them best
10 Thy handmaids, clad them o’er with purple beams
And azure wings, that up they flew so dressed,
And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes
Before the Judge, who thenceforth bid thee rest
And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams.
Sonnet XV
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
Avenge O Lord thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,
5 Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
10 To Heav’n. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O’er all th’ Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
Sonnet XVI
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere 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
5 To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
Doth God exact day labour, light denied,
I fondly ask; but patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
10 Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.
Sonnet XVII
Lawrence of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
5 From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth; and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
10 Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
He who of those delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.
Sonnet XVIII
Cyriack, whose grandsire on the Royal Bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounced and in his volumes taught our laws,
Which others at their bar so often wrench;
5 Today deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
In mirth, that after no repenting draws;
Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intend, and what the French.
To measure life learn thou betimes, and know
10 Toward solid good what leads the nearest way;
For other things mild Heav’n a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.
Sonnet XIX
Methought I saw my late espousèd saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescued from death by force though pale and faint.
5 Mine as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
10 Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight,
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
The Fifth Ode of Horace, Lib. I
Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
Rendered almost word for word without rhyme according to the Latin measure, as near as the language will permit.
What slender youth bedewed with liquid odours
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha? For whom bind’st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair,
5 Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he
On faith and changèd gods complain: and seas
Rough with black winds and storms
Unwonted shall admire:
Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold,
10 Who always vacant always amiable
Hopes thee; of flattering gales
Unmindful? Hapless they
To whom thou untried seem’st fair. Me in my vowed
Picture the sacred wall declares t’ have hung
15 My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern god of sea.
On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament
Because you have thrown off your prelate lord,
And with stiff vows renounced his liturgy
To seize the widowed whore plurality
From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred,
5 Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword
To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic hierarchy
Taught ye by mere A.S. and Rutherford?
Men whose life, learning, faith and pure intent
10 Would have been held in high esteem with Paul
Must now be named and printed heretics
By shallow Edwards and Scotch What-d’ye-call:
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packings worse than those of Trent,
15 That so the Parliament
May with their wholesome and preventive shears
Clip your phylacteries, though balk your ears,
And succour our just fears
When they shall read this clearly in your charge:
20 New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large.
PSALM PARAPHRASES ADDED IN 1673
Psalm I
Done into Verse, 1653
Blest is the man who hath not walked astray
In counsel of the wicked, and i’ th’ way
Of sinners hath not stood, and in the seat
Of scorners hath not sat. But in the great
5 Jehovah’s Law is ever his delight,
And in his Law he studies day and night.<
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He shall be as a tree which planted grows
By wat’ry streams, and in his season knows
To yield his fruit, and his leaf shall not fall,
10 And what he takes in hand shall prosper all.
Not so the wicked, but as chaff which fanned
The wind drives, so the wicked shall not stand
In judgement, or abide their trial then,
Nor sinners in th’ assembly of just men.
15 For the Lord knows th’ upright way of the just,
And the way of bad men to ruin must.
Psalm II
Done August 8, 1653. Terzetti
Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations
Muse a vain thing, the kings of th’ earth upstand
With power, and princes in their congregations
Lay deep their plots together through each land,
5 Against the Lord and his Messiah dear?
Let us break off, say they, by strength of hand
Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear,
Their twisted cords: he who in Heaven doth dwell
Shall laugh, the Lord shall scoff them, then severe
10 Speak to them in his wrath, and in his fell
And fierce ire trouble them; but I, saith he
Anointed have my king (though ye rebel)
On Sion my holy hill. A firm decree
I will declare; the Lord to me hath said
15 Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee
This day; ask of me, and the grant is made;
As thy possession I on thee bestow
The heathen, and as thy conquest to be swayed
Earth’s utmost bounds: them shalt thou bring full low
With iron sceptre bruised, and them disperse
Like to a potter’s vessel shivered so.
And now be wise at length ye kings averse,
Be taught ye judges of the earth; with fear
Jehovah serve, and let your joy converse
25 With trembling; kiss the Son lest he appear
In anger and ye perish in the way,
If once his wrath take fire like fuel sere.
Happy all those who have in him their stay.
Psalm III
August 9, 1653