Like one that had been led astray
Through the heaven's wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
SONNET ON HIS OWN BLINDNESS.
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
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
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."
Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope ;3 but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied
In liberty's defence,4 my noble task,
Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask,
Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
He speaks here with allusion to the parable of the talents, Matt. with great modesty of himself, as if he had not five, or two, but only one talent.
2 Cyriack Skinner was the son of William Skinner, Esq., a merchant of London. He was an ingenious young gentleman, and a scholar to John Milton. 3 Of heart or hope, &c. "One of Milton's characteristics was a singular fortitude of mind, arising from a consciousness of superior abilities, and a conviction that his cause was just."-Warton.
When Milton had entered upon the labour of writing his "Defence of the People of England," one of his eyes was almost gone, and the physicians predicted the loss of both if he proceeded. But he says, "I did not long balance whether my duty should be preferred to my eyes." And yet (proh pudor) this masterly work was, at the Restoration, ordered to be burnt by the common hangman!
SAMSON'S LAMENTATION FOR HIS BLINDNESS.
From Samson Agonistes.
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eased,
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me:
They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, expos'd
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!
O first-created beam, and thou great Word,
"Let there be light, and light was over all;"
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?
The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,
When she deserts the night,
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the soul,
She all in every part; why was this sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd?
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exiled from light,
As in the land of darkness, yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but, O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave:
Buried, yet not exempt,
By privilege of death and burial,
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs:
But made hereby obnoxious more
To all the miseries of life,
Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
MILTON'S INVOCATION TO LIGHT.'
Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born!
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam,
May I express thee unblamed ?2 since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,3
Whose fountain who shall tell?4 Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,5
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,6
1 "This celebrated complaint, with which Milton opens the third book, deserves all the praises which have been given it."-Addison.
2 That is, may I, without blame, call thee the co-eternal beam of the Eternal God.
3 Or rather dost thou hear this address, dost thou rather to be called, pure ethereal stream?
As in Job, xxxviii. 19, "Where is the way where light dwelleth?"
5 Kedron and Siloa. "He still was pleased to study the beauties of the ancient poets, but his highest delight was in the Songs of Sion, in the holy Scriptures, and in these he meditated day and night. This is the sense of the passage stripped of its poetical ornaments."-Newton.
Mæonides is Homer. Thamyris was a Thracian, and invented the Doric mood or measure. Tiresias and Phineus, the former a Theban, the latter a
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
EVE'S ACCOUNT OF HER CREATION.
"That day I oft remember, when from sleep
I first awaked, and found myself reposed,
Under a shade, on flowers, much wondering where
And what I was, whence thither brought, and how.
Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread
Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved,
Pure as the expanse of heaven; I thither went
With unexperienced thought, and laid me down
On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite
A shape within the watery gleam appear'd,
Bending to look on me: I started back,
It started back; but pleased I soon return'd,
Pleas'd it return'd as soon, with answering looks
Of sympathy and love: there I had fix'd
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warn'd me: 'What thou seest,
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself;
king of Arcadia, were famous blind bards of antiquity. Milton uses the word "prophet" in the sense of the Latin vates, which unites the character of prophet and poet. Indeed throughout Milton's poetry there are words and phrases perpetually occurring that are used in their pure Latin sense, the beauties of which none but a classical scholar can fully appreciate. This, of itself, is a sufficient answer to the senseless question so often asked, “ What is the use of a girl's studying Latin ?"
With thee it came and goes; but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Thy coming, and thy soft embraces; he
Whose image thou art: him thou shalt enjoy,
Inseparably thine, to him shalt bear
Multitudes like thyself, and thence be call'd
Mother of human race.' What could I do,
But follow straight, invisibly thus led?
Till I espied thee, fair indeed, and tall,
Under a plantane; yet methought less fair,
Less winning soft, less amiably mild,
Than that smooth watery image: back I turn'd;
Thou, following, cry`dst aloud, 'Return, fair Eve;
Whom fly'st thou? whom thou fly'st, of him thou art,
His flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent
Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart,
Substantial life, to have thee by my side
Henceforth an individual solace dear;
Part of my soul, I seek thee, and thee claim,
My other half.' With that thy gentle hand
Seized mine: I yielded; and from that time see
How beauty is excell'd by manly grace,
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair."
SATAN'S SPEECH WHEN THRUST DOWN TO HELL.
"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," Said then the lost archangel, "this the seat
That we must change for heaven; this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so, since he,
Who now is Sovereign, can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best,
Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time:
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be; all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free: the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven!"
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