ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.
I.
This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heav'ns 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 should release,[1]
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
II.
The glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont[2] at Heav'ns high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and, here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.[3]
III.
Say, heav'nly muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no vers, no hymn, or solemn strein
To welcome him to this his new abode
Now while the Heav'n by the suns team untrod
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
IV.
See how from far upon the eastern rode
The star-led Wisards[4] haste with odours sweet;
O run, prevent[5] them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the angel quire,[6]
From out his secret altar toucht with hallow'd fire.
THE HYMN.
I.
It was the winter wilde
While the Heav'n-born childe
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw of him
Had doff't her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun her lusty paramour.[7]
II.
Onely with speeches fair
She woo's the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
And on her naked shame,
Pollute with sinfull blame,
The saintly veil of maiden[8] white to throw:
Confounded that her Makers eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
III.
But he, her fears to cease,
Sent down the meek-eyed Peace,
She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding
Down through the turning sphear,[9]
His ready harbinger,[10]
With turtle[11] wing the amorous clouds dividing,
And, waving wide her mirtle wand,
She strikes a universall peace[12] through sea and land.
IV.
No war, or battails sound,
Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked chariot[13] stood
Unstain'd with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;
And kings sate still with awfull eye,[14]
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
V.
But peacefull was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His raign of peace upon the earth began;
The windes, with wonder whist,[15]
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joyes to the milde ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
VI.
The stars, with deep amaze,
Stand fixt in stedfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence,[16]
And will not take their flight
For[17] all the morning light
Or Lucifer[18] that often warn'd them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Untill their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
VII.
And, though the shady Gloom
Had given day her room,
The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
And hid his head for shame,
As his inferiour flame
The new-enlightn'd world no more should need;
He saw a greater sun appear
Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree[19] could bear.
VIII.
The shepherds on the lawn[20]
Or ere[21] the point of dawn
Sate simply chatting in a rustick row;
Full little thought they than
That the mighty Pan[22]
Was kindly com to live with them below;
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly[23] thoughts so busie keep.
IX.
When such musick sweet
Their hearts and ears did greet
As never was by mortall finger strook,[24]
Divinely warbled voice
Answering the stringed noise[25]
As all their souls in blissfull rapture took;
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echo's still prolongs each heav'nly close.[26]
X.
Nature that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round[27]
Of Cynthia's seat the airy region thrilling,
Now was almost won
To think her part was don,
And that her raign had here its[28] last fulfilling;
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union.
XI.
At last surrounds their sight
A globe of circular light,
That with long beams the shame-fac't Night array'd;
The helmed Cherubim,[29]
The sworded Seraphim
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaied,
Harping in loud and solemn quire
With unexpressive[30] notes to Heav'n's new-born Heir.
XII.
Such musick (as 'tis said)
Before was never made
But when of old the sons of Morning sung,[31]
While the Creator great
His constellation set,
And the well-ballanc't world on hinges[32] hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltring[33] waves their oozy channel keep.
XIII.
Ring out, ye crystall sphears;[34]
Once bless our humane ears
(If ye have power to touch our senses so),
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time,
And let the base of Heav'ns deep organ blow,
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort[35] to th' angelike symphony.
XIV.
For, if such holy song
Enwrap our fancy long,
Time will run back and fetch the age of Gold;[36]
And speckl'd Vanity
Will sicken soon and die,
And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould;[37]
And Hell itself will pass away,
And leave her[38] dolorous mansions to the peering day.
XV.
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will set between,
Thron'd in celestiall sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing;
And Heav'n, as at som festivall,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.[39]
XVI.
But wisest Fate sayes no;
This must not yet be so;
The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy,
That on the bitter cross[40]
Must redeem our loss,
So both himself and us to glorifie;
Yet first to those ychain'd[41] in sleep
The wakefull trump[42] of doom must thunder through the deep.
XVII.
With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,[43]
While the red fire and smould'ring clouds out brake;
The aged Earth, agast,
With terrour of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the center shake;
When at the worlds last session[44]
The dreadfull Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
XVIII.
And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day,
Th' old Dragon[45] under ground,
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway;
And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swindges[46] the scaly horrour of his foulded tail.
XIX.
The oracles are dumm;[47]
No voice or hideous humm
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos[48] leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspires the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell.
XX.
The lonely mountains o'er
And the resounding shore
A voice of weeping[49] heard and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale
Edged with poplar pale
The parting[50] Genius is with sighing sent;
With floure-inwov'n tresses torn
The nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
XXI.
In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth[51]
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint
In urns and altars round,
A drear and dying sound
Affrights the Flamins[52] at their service quaint
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar power forgoes[53] his wonted seat.
XXII.
Peor and Baälim[54]
Forsake their temples dim,
With that twise batter'd god[55] of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heav'ns queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers holy shine;
The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn;[56]
XXIII.
And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dred[57]
His burning idol all of blackest hue;
In vain with cymbals ring
They call the grisly[58] King
In dismall dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish[59] gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis last.
XXIV.
Nor is Osiris seen
In Memphian grove or green
Trampling the unshowr'd grass[60] with lowings loud,
Nor can he be at rest
Within his sacred chest;
Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud;
In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark
The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.
XXV.
He feels from Judas land
The dredded Infants hand;
The rayes of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;[61]
Nor all the gods beside
Longer dare abide,
Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands controul the damned crew.
XXVI.
So, when the Sun in bed,[62]
Curtain'd with cloudy red
Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
The flocking shadows pale
Troop to th' infernal jail;
Each fetter'd ghost slips to his severall grave;
And the yellow-skirted Fayes
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.
XXVII.
But see the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest;
Time is our tedious song should here have ending;
Heav'ns youngest teemed[63] star
Hath fixt her polish'd car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.[64]
NOTES.
This poem was begun by Milton on Christmas day, 1629. He had then just completed his twenty-first year, and was still an undergraduate at Christ's College, Cambridge. From certain fragments and other evidence, it is believed that he contemplated writing a series of poems on great Christian events in a similar way. This is the first poem of importance which he wrote. Hallam speaks of it as perhaps the finest lyric of its kind in the English language. "A grandeur, a simplicity, a breadth of manner, an imagination at once elevated and restrained by the subject, reign throughout it. If Pindar is a model of lyric poetry, it would be hard to name any other ode so truly Pindaric; but more has naturally been derived from the Scriptures."
[1.] our deadly forfeit should release. Should remit the penalty of death pronounced against us. Shakespeare has a similar use of the word "forfeit."
"Thy slanders I forgive, and therewithal
Remit thy other forfeits."
—Measure for Measure, Act v, sc. 1.
[2.] wont. The past tense of the A.-S. verb wunian, to persist, to continue, to be accustomed. Now used only in connection with some form of the auxiliary verb be.
[3.] Explain the meaning of each word in this line, and of the whole line. The next two stanzas comprise an invocation to the Muse of Poetry. See note 1, page [153].
[4.] Wisards. Wizards. Wise men. The word was originally used in this sense, and not with the depreciatory meaning of "magician," as at present. Spenser says:
"Therefore the antique wizards well invented
That Venus of the fomy sea was bred,"
meaning by "antique wizards" ancient philosophers.
[5.] prevent. Go before; the original meaning of the word, from Lat. præ, before, and venio, to go or come.
"I prevented the dawning of the morning."—Psalm cxix. 147.
"I will have nothing to hinder me in the morning, for I will prevent the sun rising."—Izaak Walton, Compleat Angler.
[6.] angel quire. "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God."—Luke ii, 13.
[7.] paramour. See note 9, page [80].
[8.] maiden. Pure, innocent, unpolluted. Compare
"When I am dead, strew me o'er
With maiden flowers."
—Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act iv, sc. 2.
[9.] turning sphear. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy taught that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that all the heavenly bodies revolved about it, being fixed in a complicated framework, or series of hollow crystalline spheres moving one within the other. The "turning sphear" is here this entire system of revolving spheres. See note [34], below.
[10.] harbinger. One who provides a resting-place for a superior person. It was the duty of the king's harbinger, when the court removed from one place to another, to provide lodgings for the king's retinue. Derived from harbor, harborage. The word "harbor" is from A.-S. here, army, and beorg, a refuge. Others derive the word from har, a message, and bringer—hence, one who brings a message, a herald.
Parkes's Topography of Hampstead, 1818, contains the following:
"The office of harbinger still exists in the Royal Household, the nominal duty of the officer being to ride one stage onward before the king on his progress, to provide lodging and provision for the court."
The last knight-harbinger was Sir Henry Rycroft (appointed in 1816, died October, 1846, aged eighty). The office became extinct at his death.
[11.] turtle. Commonly turtle-dove. For history of the word as now applied to the tortoise, see Worcester's Dictionary.
[12.] universall peace. About the time of the birth of Christ there was peace throughout the Roman Empire, and the temple of Janus was shut.
[13.] hooked chariot. The war-chariot armed with scythes, a Celtic invention adopted by the Romans.
[14.] awfull eye. We would say, "awe-filled eyes."
sovran. Old French souverain. Some derive it from Lat. supra, above, and regno, to reign.
[15.] whist. Hushed. This word, now used as a sort of interjection commanding silence, seems to have had in earlier English more of a verbal meaning, as Spenser in "The Faerie Queene," VII, vii, 59:
"So was the Titaness put downe and whist."
It also meant to keep silent, as in Surrey's "Virgil":
"They whisted all, with fixed face intent."
A game of cards in which the players are supposed to keep silent is called whist.
birds of calm. Halcyons. See note 1, page [78].
[16.] influence. From Lat. in, into, and fluo, to flow. This word, until a comparatively modern date, was always used with respect to the supposed mysterious rays or aspects flowing from the stars to the earth, and thus having a strange power over the fortunes of men. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?"—Job xxviii. 31.
"Happy constellations on that hour
Shed their selectest influences."
—Paradise Lost, VIII, 512.
[17.] For. Notwithstanding.
[18.] Lucifer. The morning star. The idea of Lucifer appearing to warn the stars of the approach of the sun is a happy figure. See note 7, page [80].
[19.] axle-tree. Axis. Tree in O. E. is used to signify beam. We still have single-tree, double-tree, whiffle-tree, etc. Compare "Comus," 95:
"The gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay."
[20.] lawn. Used in its original sense of a pasture, or open, grassy space. Formerly laund. Similarly we have lane, an open passage between houses or fields.
[21.] Or ere. Or is here used in its old sense, meaning before, from A.-S. ær. Ere = e'er, ever. Compare Ecclesiastes xii. 6: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed." Also "King Lear," Act ii, sc. 4:
"But this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I'll weep."
[22.] Pan. See note, page [72]. The application of the name Pan to Christ is evidently derived from Spenser. See "Shepheards Calendar," July:
"And such, I ween, the brethren were
That came from Canaän,
The brethren Twelve, that kept yfere
The flocks of mightie Pan."
In the Glosse to the Calendar for May it is said that "Great Pan is Christ, the very God of all shepheards, which calleth himselfe the great and good shepheard. The name is most rightly (methinks) applied to him; for Pan signifieth all, or omnipotent, which is only the Lord Iesus. And by that name (as I remember) he is called of Eusebius in his fifth booke, De Preparat. Evange."
[23.] silly. From A.-S. saelig, blessed, happy. Spenser uses the word in the sense of innocent, as in "Faerie Queene," III, viii, 27:
"The silly virgin strove him to withstand."
Chaucer, in the "Reves Tale," uses it in the more modern sense of simple, or foolish:
"These sely clerkes han ful fast yronne."
But in the "Legend of Good Women" it has another meaning:
"O sely woman, full of innocence."
The meaning of this word has completely changed.
[24.] strook. Caused to sound as on a stringed instrument. Compare Dryden in "Alexander's Feast":
"Now strike the golden lyre again."
[25.] noise. A company of musicians under a leader. Used in this sense by both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.
[26.] close. Cadence. See Dryden, "Fables":
"At every close she made, th' attending throng
Replied, and bore the burden of the song."
[27.] hollow round. The sphere in which the moon has its motion. See notes [9] and [34].
Cynthia. The moon. In the ancient mythology applied to Artemis, from Mount Cynthus in the island of Delos, her birthplace.
[28.] its. In all his poetry, Milton uses this word only three times. The other examples are in "Paradise Lost," I, 254, and IV, 814. This possessive form of the pronoun it was never used until the time of Shakespeare, who employs it five times in "A Winter's Tale," and once in "Measure for Measure"; it does not occur anywhere in the authorized version of the Bible.
[29.] Why are the Cherubim "helmed," while the Seraphim are "sworded"? Addison says, "Some of the rabbins tell us that the cherubims are a set of angels who know most, and the seraphims a set of angels who love most." Observe that the plural of cherub or of seraph may be formed in three ways: viz. cherubs, cherubim, cherubims; seraphs, seraphim, seraphims.
[30.] unexpressive. Inexpressible. See Shakespeare, "As You Like It":
"The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she."
Also Milton, "Lycidas," 176:
"And hears the unexpressive nuptiall song."
[31.] the sons of Morning sung. See Job xxxviii. 4-7, the oldest reference to the "music of the spheres." See note [34], below.
[32.] hinges. Literally, a hinge is anything for hanging something upon. From A.-S. hangian.
[33.] weltring. Rolling, wallowing. See "Lycidas," 13.
[34.] Ring out. An allusion to the music of the spheres. See note [27], above. The theory of Pythagoras was that the distances between the heavenly bodies were determined by the laws of musical concord. "These orbs in their motion could not but produce a certain sound or note, depending upon their distances and velocities; and as these were regulated by harmonic laws, they necessarily formed as a whole a complete musical scale." "In the whorl of the distaff of necessity there are eight concentric whorls. These whorls represent respectively the sun and moon, the five planets, and the fixed stars. On each whorl sits a siren singing. Their eight tones make one exquisite harmony." Milton added a ninth whorl,—"that swift nocturnal and diurnal rhomb,"—and then spoke of the "ninefold harmony," as just below. This was a favorite idea with the poets.
"Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years."
—Tennyson, Ode to Memory.
"The music of the spheres! list, my Mariana!"
—Shakespeare, Pericles, Act v, sc. 1.
"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims."
—Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, Act v, sc. 1.
"If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr and the purling rill!"
—Pope, Essay on Man, I.
"Her voice, the music of the spheres,
So loud, it deafens mortals' ears,
As wise philosophers have thought,
And that's the cause we hear it not."
—Butler's Hudibras, II, i, 617.
See, also, Montaigne, Essays, I, xxii; Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, II, 9; Plato's Republic, VI; Dryden's "Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew," etc.
[35.] consort. Accompaniment. This word, so written until Milton's time, has now given place to concert, whenever used as here.
[36.] age of Gold. The fabled primeval age of universal happiness.
"A blisful lyfe, a peseable, and so swete,
Ledde the peplis in the former age."—Chaucer.
[37.] mould. Matter, substance. The word is used in the old Romances to denote the earth itself. Milton elsewhere says:
"Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?"
[38.] her. Observe what has already been said (note [28], above) about the pronoun its. Hell, in the Anglo-Saxon language, is feminine. But, just above, observe the expression it self. See, in the [last line] of stanza xv, the pronoun her with heaven as its antecedent. Heofon, in the Anglo-Saxon, is also feminine.
[39.] This stanza is a fine example of word-painting. What idea is conveyed to your mind by the expressions, "orb'd in a rainbow," "like glories wearing," "thron'd in celestiall sheen," "the tissued clouds down stearing," etc.? What kind of glories will Mercy wear? Where will she sit? How will she be enthroned? What are radiant feet? Why are Mercy's feet radiant? Does she steer the tissued clouds "with radiant feet," or does she steer herself down the tissued clouds? Why will the opening of Heaven's high palace wall be "as at some festivall"?
[40.] bitter cross. Compare Shakespeare, "1 Henry IV," Act i, sc. 1, 27:
"Those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd
For our advantage, on the bitter cross."
[41.] ychain'd. The y is a corruption of the prefix ge, anciently used in connection with the past participle, and still retained in many German words. Often used by Chaucer and Spenser, as in yblessed, yburied, ybrent, yfonden, ygeten, yclad, yfraught, etc.
[42.] trump. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."—1 Thessalonians iv. 16.
[43.] rang. See Exodus xix.
[44.] session. Assize. Both words were originally from the same root, Lat. sedeo, sessum.
spread. Prepare, make ready. A similar use of the word survives in the idiom "to spread the table."
[45.] Dragon. See Revelation xii. 9.
[46.] Swindges. Swings about violently. This is the only case in which Milton uses this word. It is used several times by Shakespeare in the sense of to whip, to scourge.
[47.] oracles are dumm. Keightly says: "This was a frequent assertion of the Fathers, who ascribed to the coming of Christ what was the effect of time. They regarded the ancient oracles as having been the inspiration of the devil."
Spenser, quoting the story which Plutarch relates in "his Booke of the ceasing of miracles," says, "For at that time, as hee sayth, all Oracles surceased, and enchaunted spirites that were woont to delude the people thenceforth held their peace."—Glosse to Shepheards Calendar, May.
[48.] Delphos. The mediæval form of the word Delphi. The temple where was the chief oracle of Apollo was at Delphi, built at the foot of a precipitous cliff two thousand feet high. This oracle was suppressed by the Emperor Theodosius.
[49.] weeping. Compare Matthew ii. 19, and Jeremiah xxxi. 15.
Spenser, in the same Glosse, quoted from above, says, "About the same time that our Lorde suffered his most bitter passion for the redemption of man, certaine persons sailing from Italie to Cyprus and passing by certaine iles called Paxæ, heard a voice calling aloud Thamus, Thamus, (now Thamus was the name of an Egyptian which was pylote of the ship), who, giving ear to the crie, was bidden, when he came to Palodes to tell that great Pan was dead: which hee doubting to doe, yet for that when hee came to Palodes, there suddenly was such a calme of winde that the ship stoode still in the sea unmooved, he was forced to crie aloude that Pan was dead: wherewithall there was heard such piteous outcries, and dreadfull shriking as hath not beene the like."
[50.] parting. Departing. Frequently used in Old English.
Genius. Spirit. See "Lycidas," 182:
"Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore."
[51.] consecrated earth—holy hearth. Referring to the places specially haunted by the Lars and Lemures. The Lemures were the spirits of the dead, and were said to wander about at night, frightening the living. The Lares were the household gods, sometimes referred to as the spirits of good men. The former frequented the graveyards; the latter, the hearths.
[52.] Flamins. Priests.
[53.] forgoes. Goes from, gives up, abandons.
[54.] Peor and Baälim. Compare the proper names which occur in this and the following stanzas with those in "Paradise Lost," I, 316-352.
Peor. The name of a mountain of Palestine is here used as one of the titles of Baal, who was worshipped there.
Baälim. Plural of Baal, meaning that god in his various modifications.
Ashtaroth. The Syrian goddess Astarte. But her worship was identified rather with the planet Venus than with the moon.
Hammon. A Libyan deity, represented as a ram or as a man with ram's horns.
[55.] twise batter'd god. Dagon. See 1 Samuel v.
[56.] mourn. In Phœnicia, in the ancient city of Byblos, a festival of two days was held every year in honor of Adonis, or Thammuz, as the Phœnicians called him. The first day was observed as a day of mourning for the death of the god; the second, as a day of rejoicing because of his return to the earth. The principal participants were young women. The prophet Ezekiel alludes to this subject: "Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."—Ezekiel viii. 14.
Milton, in "Paradise Lost," says:
"Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day."
[57.] Compare with "Paradise Lost," I, 392-405. In Sandys's Travels, published in 1615, and a popular book in Milton's time, the following description is given of the sacrifices made to Moloch: "Therein the Hebrews sacrificed their children to Moloch, an idol of brass, having the head of a calf, the rest of a kingly figure, with arms extended to receive the miserable sacrifice seared to death with his burning embracements. For the idol was hollow within and filled with fire."
[58.] grisly. Frightful, hideous. Probably from A.-S. agrisan, to dread.
[59.] brutish. Shaped like a brute; animal.
Isis. The Egyptian earth-goddess, afterwards worshipped as the goddess of the moon.
Orus. The Egyptian god of the sun.
the dog Anubis. Juvenal says, "Whole towns worship the dog."—Sat., XV, 8.
[60.] unshowr'd. A reference to the general, though erroneous, idea that it does not rain in Egypt.
Osiris, or Apis, one of the chief gods of the Egyptians, was represented by a bull.
sacred chest = worshipt ark, below.
[61.] eyn. The old plural form of eyes. This form of the plural survives in oxen, children, brethren, kine, swine.
Typhon. A monster among the gods, variously described by the poets. He was a terror to all the other deities.
[62.] in bed. The sun has not yet risen.
[63.] youngest teemed. Referring to the Star of Bethlehem.
[64.] Compare Milton's "Sonnet on his Blindness":
"They also serve who only stand and wait."
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.
John Milton was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London, in the year 1608, eight years before the death of Shakespeare. From his boyhood he showed the possession of more than ordinary powers of mind. He was educated first under private tutors, and at St. Paul's School, and finally at Christ's College, Cambridge, where in 1632 he received the degree of "Master of Arts." His first considerable work was the "Hymn on the Morning of the Nativity," written in 1629. Within the next seven years he wrote the most noteworthy of his shorter poems: the masque, "Comus"; the pastoral piece entitled "Arcades"; the beautiful descriptive poems, "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso"; and the elegy, "Lycidas." In 1639 he made a tour upon the Continent, visited the famous seats of learning in France and Italy, and made the acquaintance of many of the great poets and scholars of his time. Upon hearing, however, that civil war was about to break out in England, he hastened home, resolved to devote himself to what he regarded as his country's best interests. Poetry was abandoned for politics, and for the next twenty years he wrote little except prose—political tracts and controversial essays. When Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Milton was appointed Latin Secretary of State, a position which he continued to hold until towards the downfall of the Commonwealth. But after the Restoration he quietly withdrew into retirement, resolved to devote the remainder of his life to the writing of the great poem which he had been contemplating for many years. Through unceasing study he had lost his sight; the friends of his youth had deserted him; the fortune which he had received from his father was gone. And so it was in darkness, and disappointment, and poverty, that in 1667 he gave to the world the great English epic, "Paradise Lost." It was in that same year that Dryden published his "Annus Mirabilis." Milton shortly afterward wrote "Paradise Regained"; and, in 1671, he produced "Samson Agonistes," a tragedy modelled after the masterpieces of the Greek drama. On the 8th of November, 1674, at the age of sixty-six years, his strangely eventful life came to a close.
WORDSWORTH'S SONNET TO MILTON.
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
Other Poems to be Read: L'Allegro; Il Penseroso; Comus; Lycidas; selections from Paradise Lost.
References: Masson's Life and Times of John Milton; Milton (Classical Writers), by Stopford Brooke; Milton (English Men of Letters), by Mark Pattison; Macaulay's Essay on Milton; De Quincey, Milton vs. Southey and Landor; Coleridge's Literary Remains; Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Hazlitt's English Poets.
