The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (45 page)

Read The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Online

Authors: John Milton,Burton Raffel

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary Collections, #Poetry, #Classics, #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #English poetry

BOOK: The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems
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The Son of God renders praises to His Father for the manifestation of His gracious purpose towards man, but God again declares that grace cannot be extended towards man without the satisfaction of divine justice. Man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to Godhead, and therefore with all his progeny devoted to Death must die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punishment.

The Son of God freely offers himself a ransom for man. The Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and earth; commands all the Angels to adore him. They obey, and hymning to their harps in full choir, celebrate the Father and the Son.

Meanwhile Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world’s outermost orb, where wandring he first finds a place since called the Limbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thither. Thence [Satan] comes to the Gate of Heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it. His passage thence to the orb of the sun; he finds there Uriel the Regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner Angel and, pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation, and man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights first on Mount Niphates.

 

1

      

   
Hail holy light, offspring of Heav’n first-born,

2

      

Or of the Eternal Coeternal beam

3

      

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,

4

      

And never but in unapproachèd light

5

      

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee

6

      

Bright effluence
2426
of bright essence increate.
2427

7

      

Or hear’st
2428
thou rather pure ethereal stream,

8

      

Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,

9

      

Before the Heav’ns thou wert, and at the voice

10

      

Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
2429

11

      

The rising world of waters dark and deep,

12

      

Won from the void and formless infinite.

13

      

Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,

14

      

Escaped the Stygian
2430
pool, though long detained

15

      

In that obscure sojourn,
2431
while in my flight

16

      

Through utter and through middle darkness borne,

17

      

With other notes than to the Orphean
2432
lyre
2433

18

      

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,

19

      

Taught by the Heav’nly Muse to venture down

20

      

The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,

21

      

Though hard and rare.
2434
Thee I re-visit safe,

22

      

And feel thy sov’reign vital lamp,
2435
but thou

23

      

Re-visit’st not these eyes, that roll in vain

24

      

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn,

25

      

So thick a drop serene
2436
hath quenched
2437
their orbs,

26

      

Or dim suffusion
2438
veiled.
2439
Yet not the more

27

      

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt,

28

      

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,

29

      

Smit
2440
with the love of sacred song. But chief

30

      

Thee, Sion,
2441
and the flow’ry brooks beneath

31

      

That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,

32

      

Nightly I visit, nor sometimes forget

33

      

Those other two, equaled with
2442
me in fate

34

      

(So were I equaled with them in renown)

35

      

Blind Thamyris,
2443
and blind Maeonides,
2444

36

      

And Tiresias,
2445
and Phineus,
2446
prophets old.

37

      

Then feed
2447
on thoughts, that voluntary move

38

      

Harmonious numbers,
2448
as the wakeful bird
2449

39

      

Sings darkling,
2450
and in shadiest covert
2451
hid

40

      

Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year

41

      

Seasons return, but not to me returns

42

      

Day, or the sweet approach of ev’n or morn,

43

      

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,

44

      

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine,

45

      

But cloud instead, and ever-during
2452
dark

46

      

Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men

47

      

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair

48

      

Presented with a universal blank

49

      

Of Nature’s works to me expunged
2453
and razed,
2454

50

      

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

51

      

So much the rather thou, celestial light,

52

      

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers

53

      

Irradiate.
2455
There plant
2456
eyes, all mist from thence

54

      

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

55

      

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

56

      

   
Now had the Almighty Father from above,

57

      

From the pure empyrean where He sits

58

      

High throned above all height, bent down His eye,

59

      

His own works and their works at once to view.

60

      

About Him all the Sanctities of Heav’n

61

      

Stood thick as stars, and from His sight received

62

      

Beatitude
2457
past utterance.
2458
On His right

63

      

The radiant image of His glory sat,

64

      

His only Son. On earth He first beheld

65

      

Our two first parents, yet
2459
the only two

66

      

Of mankind in the happy garden placed,

67

      

Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,

68

      

Uninterrupted joy, unrivaled love,

69

      

In blissful solitude. He then surveyed

70

      

Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there

71

      

Coasting the wall of Heav’n on this side Night

72

      

In the dun
2460
air sublime,
2461
and ready now

73

      

To stoop with wearied wings and willing feet

74

      

On the bare outside of this world, that seemed

75

      

Firm land embosomed,
2462
without firmament,
2463

76

      

Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.

77

      

Him God beholding, from His prospect
2464
high,

78

      

Wherein past, present, future, He beholds,

79

      

Thus to His only Son foreseeing spoke:

8

      

“Only-begotten Son, seest thou what rage

81

      

Transports
2465
our adversary? whom no bounds

82

      

Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains

83

      

Heaped on him there, nor yet the main abyss

84

      

Wide interrupt,
2466
can hold, so bent he seems

85

      

On desperate revenge, that shall redound

86

      

Upon his own rebellious head. And now,

87

      

Through all restraint broke
2467
loose, he wings his way

88

      

Not far off Heav’n, in the precincts
2468
of light,

89

      

Directly towards the new created world,

90

      

And man there placed, with purpose to assay
2469

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