Ah, golden lettered hope!—ah, dolorous doom!
Yet mid the common death, where all is cold,
And mildewed pride in desolation dwells,
A few great immortalities of old
Stand brightly forth—not tombes but living shrines,
Where from high sainte or martyr virtue wells,
Which on the living yet work miracles,
Spreading a relic wealth richer than golden mines.
"J.M. 1627."
Attached to it, it will be seen, are the initials J.M. and the date 1627. Is it possible that this may be an early and neglected sonnet of Milton? and yet, could Milton have seriously perpetrated the pun in the second line?