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
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.
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.
heroic life poems writers-and-writing
Let those who would write heroic poems make their life an heroic poem.
arabian bird knows lay nor second self woods
Like that self-begotten bird / In the Arabian woods embost, / That no second knows nor third, / And lay ere while a holocaust.
golden leaders-and-leadership
A crown, golden in show is but a wreath of thorns.
enduring incapable miserable
It is not miserable to be blind; it is miserable to be incapable of enduring blindness.
brought embrace
But O as to embrace me she inclined, / I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
mood perfect soft
In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood / Of flutes and soft recorders.
blest pair voice
Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav'n's joy,/ Sphere-born harmonious sisters, voice and verse.
ambition choice heaven hell reign serve though worth
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
golden iron keys last metals pilot
Last came, and last did go, / The Pilot of the Galilean lake, / Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain, / (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
modesty rich covetousness
True it is that covetousness is rich, modesty starves.