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
christian running race
He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
unity pieces body
They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and don't permit others to unite those dissevered pieces which are yet wanting to the body of Truth.
knights forests fairy
Fairy damsels met in forest wide / By knights of Logres, or of Lyones, / Lancelot or Pelleas, or Pellenore.
science missing impossible
Th'invention all admir'd, and each, how he to be th'inventor miss'd; so easy it seem'd once found, which yet unfound most would have thought impossible.
dancing midnight revelry
Midnight shout and revelry, Tipsy dance and jollity.
memories men names
A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses
sweet philosophy musical
How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets Where no crude surfeit reigns
law sin remove
Laws can discover sin, but not remove it
two iron lakes
The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
country boredom golden
The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil; Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.
men erring chance
That power Which erring men call Chance.
umpires decision reign
Chaos umpire sits And by decision more embroils the fray by which he reigns: next him high arbiter Chance governs all.
light holy hail
Hail holy light, offspring of heav'n firstborn!
sleep dew timely
The timely dew of sleep.