The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Read Online Free PDF

after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze. 186
     
    XXVII

    But see, the Virgin blest
    Hath laid her Babe to rest.
Time is our tedious 187 song should here have ending.
    Heav’n’s youngest-teemèd 188 star
    Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending,
    And all about the courtly stable
    Bright-harnessed 189 angels sit in order serviceable. 190

 
    THE PASSION

     
    1630: “This subject the author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished.”
     
    I

    Erewhile 191 of music and ethereal mirth,
    Wherewith the stage of air and earth did ring,
    And joyous news of Heav’nly infant’s birth,
    My muse with Angels did divide to sing. 192
    But headlong joy is ever on the wing,
In wintry solstice like the shortened light
    Soon swallowed up in dark and long outliving night.
     
    II

    For now to sorrow must I tune my song,
    And set my harp to notes of saddest woe,
    Which on our dearest Lord did seize 193 ere long
    Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse than so,
    Which he for us did freely undergo,
Most perfect hero, tried in heaviest 194 plight 195
    Of labors huge and hard, too hard for human wight. 196
     
    III

    He sov’reign priest, stooping his regal head
    That dropped with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
    Poor fleshly tabernacle 197 entered,
    His starry front low-roofed beneath the skies.
    Oh what a mask was there, what a disguise!
Yet more: the stroke of death he must abide, 198
    Then lies him meekly down fast by his brethren’s side.
     
    IV

    These latter scenes confine my roving verse;
    To this horizon is my Phoebus 199 bound:
    His Godlike acts, and his temptations fierce,
    And former sufferings otherwhere are found.
    Loud o’er the rest Cremona’s trump doth sound. 200
     
     
Me softer airs befit, 201 and softer strings
    Of lute, or viol still, 202 more apt for mournful things.
     
    V

    Befriend me, night, best patroness of grief,
    Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
    And work my flattered fancy to belief
    That Heav’n and earth are colored with my woe,
    My sorrows are too dark for day to know.
The leaves should all be black wheron I write,
    And letters, where my tears have washed, a wannish white.
     
    VI

    See, see the chariot, and those rushing wheels
    That whirled the prophet 203 up, at Chebar flood!
    My spirit some transporting Cherub feels,
    To bear me where the towers of Salem 204 stood,
    Once glorious towers, now sunk in guiltless blood.
There doth my soul in holy vision sit,
    In pensive 205 trance, 206 and anguish, and ecstatic fit. 207
     
    VII

    Mine eye hath found that sad sepulchral rock
    That was the casket of Heav’n’s richest store, 208
     
     
    And here though grief my feeble hands uplock 209
    Yet on the softened quarry 210 would I score 211
    My plaining 212 verse, as lively 213 as before,
For sure so well instructed are my tears
    That they would fitly fall in ordered characters. 214
     
    VIII

    Or should I, thence hurried on viewless wing,
    Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,
    The gentle neighborhood of grove and spring
    Would soon unbosom all their echoes mild,
    And I (for grief is easily beguiled)
Might think th’ infection 215 of my sorrows loud
    Had got a race of mourners on some pregnant cloud.

 
    SONG: ON MAY MORNING

     
    1630–31
     
    Now the bright morning star, day’s harbinger, 216
    Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
    The flow’ry May, who from her green lap throws
    The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.
Hail bounteous May, that dost inspire
    Mirth and youth and warm desire,
    Woods and groves are of thy dressing, 217
    Hill and dale 218 doth boast thy blessing.
    Thus we salute thee with our early song,
    And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

 
    ON TIME 1050

     
    1633–37?
     
    Fly, envious time, till thou run out thy race!
    Call on the lazy leaden-stepping 1051 hours,
    Whose speed is but the heavy plummet’s 1052 pace,
    And glut