John Milton
John Milton
John Miltonwas an English poet, polemicist, and man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 December 1608
dark further guiding hand lend onward thy
A little onward lend thy guiding hand / To these dark steps, a little further on.
madness
Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy, / And moon-struck madness.
haughty nation proud
An old, and haughty nation proud in arms.
fancies garland high poet region robes singing soaring
A poet soaring in the high region of his fancies with his garland and singing robes about him.
almost destroys eye good image man reasonable
As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye
consider dark days death half light spent talent
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.
best gentle modest reluctant required sway sweet
Implied / Subjection, but required with gentle sway / And by her yielded, by him best received; / Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, / And sweet reluctant amorous delay.
beauty
Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded, but must be current.
beauty high
Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown/ In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities.
appeared excess form glory less lost nor original
His form had yet not lost / All her original brightness, nor appeared / Less than archangel ruined, and th' excess / Of glory obscured.
dark foul hides himself secrets soul thoughts walks
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself is his own dungeon.
hear slow sullen swinging
I hear the far-off curfew sound, / Over some wide-watered shore, / Swinging slow with sullen roar.
few large limbo paradise since
Into a Limbo large and broad, since called / The paradise of fools, to few unknown.
against air calm earth heaven injury nature rejoicing seasons
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