The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (5 page)

1628

The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began:

Hail, native language, that by sinews weak

Didst move my first endeavoring tongue to speak

And mad’st imperfect words with childish trips,

Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,

Driving dumb silence from the portal door,

Where he had mutely sat two years before!

Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,

That now I use thee in my later task.

Small loss it is that hence can come unto thee:

I know my tongue but little grace can do thee.

Thou needst not be ambitious to be first:

Believe me, I have thither
⁷⁷
packed the worst—

And, if it happen, as I did forecast,

The daintiest dishes shall be served up last.

I pray thee, then, deny me not thy aid

For this same small neglect that I have made,

But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,

And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure,

Not those new-fangled toys and trimming slight

Which takes our late fantastics with delight,

But cull those richest robes and gay’st attire

Which deepest spirits and choicest wits desire.

I have some naked
⁷⁸
thoughts that rove about

And loudly knock to have their passage out,

And, weary of their place, do only stay

Till thou has decked them in thy best array,

That so they may without suspect
⁷⁹
or fears

Fly swiftly to this fair assembly’s ears.

Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,

Thy service in some graver subject use,

Such as may make thee search thy coffers
⁸⁰
round
⁸¹

Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound—

Such where the deep transported mind may soar

Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav’n’s door

Look in, and see each blissful deity

How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,

Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings

To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe
⁸²
brings

Immortal nectar to her kingly sire.

Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,

And misty regions of wide air next under,

And hills of snow and lofts
⁸³
of pilèd thunder,

May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,

In Heav’n’s defiance mustering all his waves.

Then sing of secret things that came to pass

When beldam
⁸⁴
Nature in her cradle was.

And last, of kings and queens and heroes old,

Such as the wise Demodocus
⁸⁵
once told,

In solemn songs at king Alcinous’ feast,

While sad Ulysses’ soul and all the rest

Are held with his melodious harmony

In willing chains and sweet captivity.

But fie, my wand’ring muse! How thou dost stray!

Expectance calls thee now another way:

Thou know’st it must be now thy only bent

To keep in compass
⁸⁶
of thy predicament.
⁸⁷

Then quick, about thy purposed business come,

That to the next I may resign my room.
⁸⁸

Then Ens is represented as father of the [ten Aristotelian] predicaments, his ten sons, whereof the eldest stood for substance, with his canons, which Ens, thus speaking, explains:

Good luck befriend thee, son, for at thy birth

The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth.

Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy

Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,

And sweetly singing round about thy bed

Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.

She heard them give thee this: that thou should’st still

From eyes of mortals walk invisible.

Yet there is something that doth force my fear,

For once it was my dismal
⁸⁹
hap
⁹⁰
to hear

A sibyl
⁹¹
old, bow-bent with crooked age,

That far events full wisely could presage,

And in time’s long and dark prospective glass

Foresaw what future days should bring to pass:

“Your son,” said she, “(nor can you it prevent)

Shall be subject to many an accident.

O’er all his brethren he shall reign as king,

Yet every one shall make him underling,

And those that cannot live from him asunder
⁹²

Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under.

In worth and excellence he shall out-go
⁹³
them,

Yet being above them, he shall be below them.

From others he shall stand in need of nothing,

Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.

To find a foe it shall not be his hap,

And peace shall lull him in her flow’ry lap.

Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door

Devouring war shall never cease to roar.

Yea, it shall be his natural property
⁹⁴

To harbor those that are at enmity.”

What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not

Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?

The next,
Quantity
and
Quality,
spoke in prose. Then
Relation
was called by his name:

Rivers
⁹⁵
arise, whether thou be the son

Of utmost
⁹⁶
Tweed,
⁹⁷
or Ouse, or gulfy Dun,
⁹⁸

Or Trent, who like some earth-born giant spreads

His thirty
⁹⁹
arms along the indented meads,

Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath,

Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden’s death,
¹⁰⁰

Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lea,

Or coaly Tyne,
¹⁰¹
or ancient hallowed Dee,

Or Humber loud, that keeps
¹⁰²
the Scythian’s name,

Or Medway smooth, or royal-towered Thame.
¹⁰³

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY

1629

I

This is the month, and this the happy morn

Wherein the son of Heav’n’s eternal king,

Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,

Our great redemption from above did bring.

For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit
¹⁰⁴
should release,

And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
¹⁰⁵

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty

Wherewith he wont,
¹⁰⁶
at Heav’n’s high council-table

To sit, the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside, and here with us to be

Forsook the courts
¹⁰⁷
of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III

Say Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
¹⁰⁸

Afford
¹⁰⁹
a present to the infant God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
¹¹⁰

To welcome him to this his new abode,

Now while the Heav’n by the sun’s team
¹¹¹
untrod,

Hath took no print
¹¹²
of the approaching light

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV

See how, from far, upon the eastern road

The star-led wizards
¹¹³
haste, with odors sweet!

O run, prevent
¹¹⁴
them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet!

Have thou the honor, first thy Lord to greet,

And join thy voice unto the Angel choir

From out his secret altar, touched with hallowed fire.

THE HYMN

I

It was the winter wild,

While the Heav’n-born child

All meanly
¹¹⁵
wrapped in the rude
¹¹⁶
manger
¹¹⁷
lies.

Nature in awe
¹¹⁸
to him

Had doffed
¹¹⁹
her gaudy
¹²⁰
trim,
¹²¹

With her great master so to sympathize.

It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty
¹²²
paramour.