John Milton

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The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

John Milton (9 December 1608 - 8 November 1674) was an English poet and politician, most famous for his epic poem Paradise Lost.

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2 Sourced
3 External links

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Sourced

What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
- On Shakespeare (1630)

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year.
- On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-three (1631)

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.
- Arcades (1630-1634), l. 68

The lazy leaden-stepping Hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace.
- On Time (c. 1637)

O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray
Warbl'st at eve, when all the woods are still.
- Sonnet, To the Nightingale (c. 1637)

Where the bright seraphim in burning row
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow.
- At a Solemn Music (c. 1637)

A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.
- The Reason of Church Government (1641), Book II, Introduction

By labor and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.
- The Reason of Church Government (1641), Book II, Introduction

He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.
- Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)

His words...like so many nimble and airy servitors trip about him at command.
- Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)

Truth...never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her forth.
- The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), Introduction

Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.
- The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), Introduction

Inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.
- Tractate of Education (1644)

Ornate rhetoric thought out of the rule of Plato...To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate.
- Tractate of Education (1644)

In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.
- Tractate of Education (1644)

Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
- Tetrachordon (1644-1645)

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.
- To Cyriack Skinner (1646-1647)

For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors is accounted Plagiarè.
- Eikonoklastes (1649), 23

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.
- Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)

No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.
- Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)

Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war.
- To the Lord General Cromwell (1652)

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.
- On His Blindness (1652)

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.
- On His Blindness (1652)

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
Forget not.
- On the Late Massacre in Piedmont (1655)

Yet I argue not
Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate one jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer
Right onward.
- To Cyriack Skinner, upon His Blindness (c. 1655)

Methought I saw my late espousèd saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave.
- On His Deceased Wife (c. 1658)

But oh! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
- On His Deceased Wife (c. 1658)

Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?
- The History of England (1670), Book IV

For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need.
- The Prose Works of John Milton, Volume II, Book III. (1847)

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On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629)

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heav'n'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.
- St. 1, l. 1

It was the winter wild
While the Heav'n-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.
- Hymn, st. 1, l. 29

No war, or battle's sound
Was heard the world around.
The idle spear and shield were high up hung.
- Hymn, st. 4, l. 53

Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold.
- Hymn, st. 14, l. 135

The Oracles are dumb.
- Hymn, st. 19, l. 173

From haunted spring and dale
Edged with poplar pale
The parting genius is with sighing sent.
- Hymn, st. 20, l. 184

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L'Allegro (1631)

Hence, loathèd Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,
'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy.
- l. 1

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathèd smiles.
- l. 25

Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter, holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as you go.
On the light fantastic toe.
- l. 31

Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free.
- l. 38

While the cock with lively din
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn door,
Stoutly struts his dames before,
Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn.
- l. 49

And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
- l. 67

Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and balements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.
- l. 75

And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the checkered shade.
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday.
- l. 94

Then lies him down the lubber fiend,
And stretched out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength.
- l. 110

Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men.
- l. 117

Ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize.
- l. 121

And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild,
And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.
- l. 127

Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.
- l. 143

Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee, I mean to live.
- l. 148

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Il Penseroso (1631)

Hence vain deluding Joys,
The brood of Folly without father bred!
- l. 1

And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.
- l. 39

And join with thee, calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet.
- l. 45

And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.
- l. 49

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
- l. 61

I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'n's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
- l. 65

Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging low with sullen roar.
- l. 73

Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth.
- l. 79

Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptered pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Trot divine.
- l. 97

But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musaeus from his bower,
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as warbled to the string,
Drew Iron tears down Pluto’s cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek.
- l. 105

Where more is meant than meets the ear.
- l. 120

Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered sleep.
- l. 141

And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the peling organ blow,
To the full-voiced choir below,
In service high, and anthems clear
As may, with sweetness, through mine ear
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
- l. 159

Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
- l. 173

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Comus (1634)

Before the starry threshold of Jove's Court
My mansion is.
- l. 1

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call earth.
- l. 5

Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of Eternity.
- l. 12

Bacchus,that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine.
- l. 46

And the gilded car of day,
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream.
- l. 95

What hath night to do with sleep?
- l. 122

A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
- l. 205

Was I deceived or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
- l. 221

How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smiled!
- l. 249

Virtue could see to do what Virtue would
By her own radiant light, through sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,
Where, with her best nurse Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings.
- l. 373

Tis Chastity, my brother, Chastity:
She that has that, is clad in complete steel.
- l. 420

How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbèd, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
- l. 476

Filled the air with barbarous dissonance.
- l. 550

I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of Death.
- l. 560

That power
Which erring men call Chance.
- l. 587

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind.
- l. 663

Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded,
But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss.
- l. 739

Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown
In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities,
Where most may wonder at the workmanship;
It is for homely features to keep home —
They had their name thence; coarse complexions
And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply
The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?
- l. 745

Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,
That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence.
- l. 790

Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair;
Listen for dear honor's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save.
- l. 859

But now my task is smoothly done:
I can fly, or I can run.
- l. 1012

Love Virtue, she alone is free,
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her.
- l. 1019

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Lycidas (1637)

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forced fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
- l. 1

Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove afield; and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night.
- l. 26

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
- l. 37

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That lst infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorrèd shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.
- l. 64

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.
- l. 78

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in th' eclipse, and rigged with curses dark,
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.
- l. 100

Last came, and last did go,
The Pilot of the Galilean lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
- l. 108

Blind mouths! That scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook.
- l. 119

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
- l. 123

Throw hither all your quaint enameled eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies.
- l. 139

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,
Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide
Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world.
- l. 156

Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth.
- l. 163

For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor;
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed;
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves.
- l. 166