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
belated dreams fairy forest midnight moon overhead peasant side whose
Fairy elves, / Whose midnight revels, by a forest side / Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, / Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon / Sits arbitress.
contagion flashy foul hungry lean mist pipes rank rot sheep songs wretched
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs / Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw, / 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.
bloody infant mother
The bloody Piedmontese that rolled / Mother with infant down the rocks.
divinely fit love
She fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods.
highest middle sat tree
Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life,/ The middle tree and highest there that grew, / Sat like a cormorant.
blaze eclipse hope total
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,/ Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse / Without all hope of day!
dire entrance high immortal leads rocks verse whose
Storied of old in high immortal verse / Of dire chimeras and enchanted isles, / And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Hell.
adding fuel gone knows thy words
He's gone and who knows how he may report/ Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
anarchy laws limited power protected sure
Anarchy is the sure consequence of tyranny; or no power that is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them
attic bird notes retirement summer
The olive-grove of Academe, / Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird / Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.
haughty nation proud
An old, and haughty nation proud in arms.
common hail human law mysterious paradise sole source true
Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source / Of human offspring, sole propriety / In Paradise of all things common else.
chains hidden melting soul tie voice
The melting voice through mazes running;/ Untwisting all the chains that tie / The hidden soul of harmony.
diminished hide sight stars whose
At whose sight all the stars / Hide their diminished heads.