Milton Memorial Lectures, 1908: Read Before the Royal Society of LiteratureH. Frowde, 1909 - 222 pages |
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admiration alluded angels Areopagitica Arians beauty Bishop blank verse blind character Christ Christian Church Comus controversy Dante death Devil Divine Divorce Doctrine doubt earth England English engraving Episcopacy ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE evil expression fact Galileo grand style grandeur Heaven Hell Henry Oldenburg heresy honour human Il Penseroso influences interest Ithuriel Jesus John Milton King L'Allegro Latin learning least less liberty licensed literature look Lord Lycidas Masson matter means melodious ment mind nation nature never opinion Paradise Lost Paradise Regained passage passion perhaps poem poet poet's poetic poetry political portrait possession printed prose published pure Puritan recognise religion religious rhyme Roman Rome Samson Agonistes Satan says Scriptures seems sense Society song sonnet soul spirit Star Chamber sublime thee theological things thou thought tion treatise true truth utter whilst words writings written youth
Popular passages
Page 14 - And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse ; Such* as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning ; The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony ; That Orpheus...
Page 47 - And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?
Page 16 - His praise, ye Winds, that from four quarters blow, Breathe soft or loud ; and, wave your tops, ye Pines, With every plant, in sign of worship wave. Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. Join voices all ye living Souls: Ye Birds, That singing up to Heaven-gate ascend, Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
Page 74 - And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light; " Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire, " Outrageous to devour, immures us round " Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant, " Barred over us, prohibit all egress.
Page 76 - Of living sapphire, once his native seat ; And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.
Page 17 - Ring out, ye crystal spheres ! Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time ; And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.
Page 29 - THE measure is English heroic verse without rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin — rime being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame metre...
Page 20 - HARRY, whose tuneful and well-measured song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas' ears, committing short and long, Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan : To after age thou shalt be writ the man That with smooth air couldst humour best our tongue. Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her wing To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus...
Page 17 - Sirens' harmony, That sit upon the nine infolded spheres, And sing to those that hold the vital shears, And turn the adamantine spindle round On which the fate of gods and men is wound. Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie, To lull the daughters of Necessity, And keep unsteady Nature to her law, And the low world in measured motion draw After the heavenly tune, which none can hear Of human mould with gross unpurged ear.
Page xiii - I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem...