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
approach face human returns seasons sight sweet thus year
Thus with the year / Seasons return, but not to me returns / Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, / Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, / Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.
cloud forth lining silver turn
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud / Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
bottomless chains dwell
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell / In adamantine chains and penal fire.
necessity
With necessity, / The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.
might shape
The other shape, / If shape it might be called that shape had none.
add taking
We are at the max, ... We can't add anything out here without taking away something else.
rule streaming thy
With thy long levelled rule of streaming light.
best retirement return short solitude sweet urges
For solitude is sometimes best society, And short retirement urges sweet return
blank book cheerful cut entrance fair knowledge men presented quite shut universal ways wisdom works
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 razed, / And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
begin god great himself manner period reforming reveal
God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in His Church, even to the reforming of the Reformation itself. What does he then but reveal Himself to His servants, and as His manner is, first to His Englishmen?
appear reason tongue worse
His tongue dropt manna, and could make the worse appear the better reason
adding fuel gone knows thy words
He's gone and who knows how he may report/ Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
father folly vain
Hence, vain deluding joys, / The brood of Folly without father bred.
engine ready stands
But that two-handed engine at the door, / Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.