and silent as the moon
When she deserts the night,
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
But now the winter is overpast, the singing of birds is heard in our land, and she too awakes and sings. With the vernal equinox my thoughts flow free as Helicon." Then, with slow and deliberate diction, he repeated the lines once more: and, having had them read aloud to him, he compressed, condensed, concentrated every thought and phrase, and reduced them to twenty.
"There is more to come?" queried Elwood, his quill poised ready to write.
"No more. Not one word more at present," replied Milton, sighing as though somewhat exhausted.
His inspiration was entirely intermittent: and sometimes he would lie awake all night, trying, but without success, to complete one single line to his liking. "They please me not wholly, these lines," he continued, "much remains to be done before I set them down to be changed no more."
"Not every man would say so," replied Elwood, "the learning and erudition whereof these few lines alone give witness, would supply many with just cause for boasting throughout a lifetime."
Milton shook his head. "Pomp and ostentation of reading," he remarked, "is admired among the vulgar: but in matters of religion, he is learnedest who is plainest."
