To person or to poem! Me, of these
Nor skilled nor studious, higher argument
Remains, sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing 45
Depressed; and much they may if all be mine,
Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.'
—Paradise Lost, Book ix. 1-47.
The following verses addressed to the seraph Abdiel, Milton, at the time he wrote them, might justly have taken to himself:
'Servant of God, well done! Well hast thou fought