The Complete Poems

by John Milton

  Aim at the highest, without the highest attained

  Will be for thee no sitting, or not long

  On David’s throne, be prophesied what will.

  To whom the Son of God unmoved replied.

  110 Nor doth this grandeur and majestic show

  Of luxury, though called magnificence,

  More than of arms before, allure mine eye,

  Much less my mind; though thou shouldst add to tell

  Their sumptuous gluttonies, and gorgeous feasts

  115 On citron tables or Atlantic stone;

  (For I have also heard, perhaps have read)

  Their wines of Setia, Cales, and Falerne,

  Chios and Crete, and how they quaff in gold,

  Crystal and myrrhine cups embossed with gems

  120 And studs of pearl, to me shouldst tell who thirst

  And hunger still: then embassies thou show’st

  From nations far and nigh; what honour that,

  But tedious waste of time to sit and hear

  So many hollow compliments and lies,

  125 Outlandish flatteries? then proceed’st to talk

  Of the emperor, how easily subdued,

  How gloriously; I shall, thou say’st, expel

  A brutish monster: what if I withal

  Expel a devil who first made him such?

  130 Let his tormentor Conscience find him out;

  For him I was not sent, nor yet to free

  That people victor once, now vile and base,

  Deservedly made vassal, who once just,

  Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquered well,

  135 But govern ill the nations under yoke,

  Peeling their provinces, exhausted all

  By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown

  Of triumph, that insulting vanity;

  Then cruel, by their sports to blood inured

  140 Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed;

  Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still,

  And from the daily scene effeminate.

  What wise and valiant man would seek to free

  These thus degenerate, by themselves enslaved,

  145 Or could of inward slaves make outward free?

  Know therefore when my season comes to sit

  On David’s throne, it shall be like a tree

  Spreading and overshadowing all the earth,

  Or as a stone that shall to pieces dash

  150 All monarchies besides throughout the world,

  And of my kingdom there shall be no end:

  Means there shall be to this, but what the means,

  Is not for thee to know, nor me to tell.

  To whom the Tempter impudent replied.

  155 I see all offers made by me how slight

  Thou valu’st, because offered, and reject’st:

  Nothing will please the difficult and nice,

  Or nothing more than still to contradict:

  On the other side know also thou, that I

  160 On what I offer set as high esteem,

  Nor what I part with mean to give for naught;

  All these which in a moment thou behold’st,

  The kingdoms of the world to thee I give;

  For giv’n to me, I give to whom I please,

  165 No trifle; yet with this reserve, not else,

  On this condition, if thou wilt fall down,

  And worship me as thy superior lord,

  Easily done, and hold them all of me;

  For what can less so great a gift deserve?

  170 Whom thus our Saviour answered with disdain.

  I never liked thy talk, thy offers less,

  Now both abhor, since thou hast dared to utter

  The abominable terms, impious condition;

  But I endure the time, till which expired,

  175 Thou hast permission on me. It is written

  The first of all commandments, Thou shalt worship

  The Lord thy God, and only him shalt serve;

  And dar’st thou to the Son of God propound

  To worship thee accurst, now more accurst

  180 For this attempt bolder than that on Eve,

  And more blasphémous? which expect to rue.

  The kingdoms of the world to thee were giv’n,

  Permitted rather, and by thee usurped;

  Other donation none thou canst produce:

  185 If given, by whom but by the King of kings,

  God over all supreme? If given to thee,

  By thee how fairly is the Giver now

  Repaid? But gratitude in thee is lost

  Long since. Wert thou so void of fear or shame,

  190 As offer them to me the Son of God,

  To me my own, on such abhorrèd pact,

  That I fall down and worship thee as God?

  Get thee behind me; plain thou now appear’st

  That Evil One, Satan for ever damned.

  195 To whom the Fiend with fear abashed replied.

  Be not so sore offended, Son of God;

  Though Sons of God both angels are and men,

  If I to try whether in higher sort

  Than these thou bear’st that title, have proposed

  200 What both from men and angels I receive,

  Tetrarchs of fire, air, flood, and on the earth

  Nations besides from all the quartered winds,

  God of this world invoked and world beneath;

  Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold

  205 To me is fatal, me it most concerns.

  The trial hath endamaged thee no way,

  Rather more honour left and more esteem;

  Me naught advantaged, missing what I aimed.

  Therefore let pass, as they are transitory,

  210 The kingdoms of this world; I shall no more

  Advise thee; gain them as thou canst, or not.

  And thou thyself seem’st otherwise inclined

  Than to a worldly crown, addicted more

  To contemplation and profound dispute,

  215 As by that early action may be judged,

  When slipping from thy mother’s eye thou went’st

  Alone into the Temple; there wast found

  Among the gravest Rabbis disputant

  On points and questions fitting Moses’ chair,

  220 Teaching not taught; the childhood shows the man,

  As morning shows the day. Be famous then

  By wisdom; as thy empire must extend,

  So let thy mind o’er all the world,

  In knowledge, all things in it comprehend;

  225 All knowledge is not couched in Moses’ law,

  The Pentateuch or what the Prophets wrote;

  The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach

  To admiration, led by Nature’s light;

  And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,

  230 Ruling them by persuasion as thou mean’st;

  Without their learning how wilt thou with them,

  Or they with thee hold conversation meet?

  How wilt thou reason with them, how refute

  Their idolisms, traditions, paradoxes?

  235 Error by his own arms is best evinced.

  Look once more ere we leave this specular mount

  Westward, much nearer by southwest, behold

  Where on the Áegean shore a city stands

  Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,

  240 Athens the eye of Greece, mother of arts

  And eloquence, native to famous wits

  Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,

  City or suburban, studious walks and shades;

  See there the olive grove of Academe,

  245 Plato’s retirement, where the Attic bird

  Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;

  There flow’ry hill Hymettus with the sound

  Of bees’ industrious murmur oft invites

  To studious musing; there Ilissus roll
s

  250 His whispering stream; within the walls then view

  The schools of ancient sages; his who bred

  Great Alexander to subdue the world,

  Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:

  There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power

  255 Of harmony in tones and numbers hit

  By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,

  Aeolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,

  And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,

  Blind Melesigenes thence Homer called,

  260 Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.

  Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught

  In chorus or iambic, teachers best

  Of moral prudence, with delight received

  In brief sententious precepts, while they treat

  265 Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;

  High actions, and high passions best describing:

  Thence to the famous orators repair,

  Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence

  Wielded at will that fierce democraty,

  270 Shook the Arsenal and fulmined over Greece,

  To Macedon, and Artaxerxes’ throne;

  To sage philosophy next lend thine ear,

  From heaven descended to the low-roofed house

  Of Socrates, see there his tenement,

  275 Whom well-inspired the oracle pronounced

  Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth

  Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools

  Of Academics old and new, with those

  Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect

  280 Epicurean, and the Stoic severe;

  These here revolve, or, as thou lik’st, at home,

  Till time mature thee to a kingdom’s weight;

  These rules will render thee a king complete

  Within thyself, much more with empire joined.

  285 To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied.

  Think not but that I know these things, or think

  I know them not; not therefore am I short

  Of knowing what I ought: he who receives

  Light from above, from the fountain of light,

  290 No other doctrine needs, though granted true;

  But these are false, or little else but dreams,

  Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.

  The first and wisest of them all professed

  To know this only, that he nothing knew;

  295 The next to fabling fell and smooth conceits,

  A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense;

  Others in virtue placed felicity,

  But virtue joined with riches and long life;

  In corporal pleasure he, and careless ease;

  300 The Stoic last in philosophic pride,

  By him called virtue; and his virtuous man,

  Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing

  Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer,

  As fearing God nor man, contemning all

  305 Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life,

  Which when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can,

  For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,

  Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.

  Alas what can they teach, and not mislead;

  310 Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,

  And how the world began, and how man fell

  Degraded by himself, on grace depending?

  Much of the soul they talk, but all awry,

  And in themselves seek virtue, and to themselves

  315 All glory arrogate, to God give none;

  Rather accuse him under usual names,

  Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite

  Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these

  True wisdom, finds her not, or by delusion

  320 Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,

  An empty cloud. However, many books,

  Wise men have said, are wearisome; who reads

  Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

  A spirit and judgement equal or superior,

  325 (And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek)

  Uncertain and unsettled still remains,

  Deep versed in books and shallow in himself,

  Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,

  And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;

  330 As children gathering pebbles on the shore.

  Or if I would delight my private hours

  With music or with poem, where so soon

  As in our native language can I find

  That solace? All our Law and story strewed

  335 With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscribed,

  Our Hebrew songs and harps in Babylon,

  That pleased so well our victors’ ear, declare

  That rather Greece from us these arts derived;

  Ill imitated, while they loudest sing

  340 The vices of their deities, and their own

  In fable, hymn, or song, so personating

  Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.

  Remove their swelling epithets, thick-laid

  As varnish on a harlot’s cheek, the rest,

  345 Thin-sown with aught of profit or delight,

  Will far be found unworthy to compare

  With Sion’s songs, to all true tastes excelling,

  Where God is praised aright, and Godlike men,

  The Holiest of Holies, and his saints;

  350 Such are from God inspired, not such from thee;

  Unless where moral virtue is expressed

  By light of Nature not in all quite lost.

  Their orators thou then extoll’st, as those

  The top of eloquence, statists indeed,

  355 And lovers of their country, as may seem;

  But herein to our Prophets far beneath,

  As men divinely taught, and better teaching

  The solid rules of civil government

  In their majestic unaffected style

  360 Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.

  In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,

  What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so,

  What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;

  These only with our Law best form a king.

  365 So spake the Son of God; but Satan now

  Quite at a loss, for all his darts were spent,

  Thus to our Saviour with stern brow replied.

  Since neither wealth, nor honour, arms nor arts,

  Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor aught

  370 By me proposed in life contemplative,

  Or active, tended on by glory, or fame,

  What dost thou in this world? The wilderness

  For thee is fittest place; I found thee there,

  And thither will return thee; yet remember

  375 What I foretell thee; soon thou shalt have cause

  To wish thou never hadst rejected thus

  Nicely or cautiously my offered aid,

  Which would have set thee in short time with ease

  On David’s throne; or throne of all the world,

  380 Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season,

  When prophecies of thee are best fulfilled.

  Now contrary, if I read aught in heaven,

  Or heaven write aught of Fate, by what the stars

  Voluminous, or single characters,

  385 In their conjunction met, give me to spell,

  Sorrows, and labours, opposition, hate,

  Attends thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries,

  Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death;

  A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom,

  390 Real or allegoric I discern not,

  Nor when; eternal sure, as without end,

  Without beginning; for no date prefixed

  Directs me
in the starry rubric set.

  So saying he took (for still he knew his power

  395 Not yet expired) and to the wilderness

  Brought back the Son of God, and left him there,

  Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose,

  As daylight sunk, and brought in louring night,

  Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both,

  400 Privation mere of light and absent day.

  Our Saviour meek and with untroubled mind

  After his airy jaunt, though hurried sore,

  Hungry and cold betook him to his rest,

  Wherever, under some concóurse of shades

  405 Whose branching arms thick intertwined might shield

  From dews and damps of night his sheltered head,

  But sheltered slept in vain, for at his head

  The Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams

  Disturbed his sleep; and either tropic now

  410 Gan thunder, and both ends of heav’n; the clouds

  From many a horrid rift abortive poured

  Fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire

  In ruin reconciled: nor slept the winds

  Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad

  415 From the four hinges of the world, and fell

  On the vexed wilderness, whose tallest pines,

  Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks

  Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,

  Or torn up sheer: ill wast thou shrouded then,

  420 O patient Son of God, yet only stood’st

  Unshaken; not yet stayed the terror there;

  Infernal ghosts, and Hellish Furies, round

  Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked,

  Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou

  425 Sat’st unappalled in calm and sinless peace.

  Thus passed the night so foul till morning fair

  Came forth with pilgrim steps in amice grey;

  Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar

  Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds,

  430 And grisly spectres, which the Fiend had raised

  To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.

  And now the sun with more effectual beams

  Had cheered the face of earth, and dried the wet

  From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds

  435 Who all things now behold more fresh and green,

  After a night of storm so ruinous,

  Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray

  To gratulate the sweet return of morn;

  Nor yet amidst this joy and brightest morn

  440 Was absent, after all his mischief done,

  The Prince of Darkness; glad would also seem

  Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came,

  Yet with no new device, they all were spent;

  Rather by this his last affront resolved,