Of public fraud. In vain doth valour bleed, While avarice and rapine share the land.
TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL.
CROMWELL, our chief of men, who, through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith, and matchless fortitude, To peace & truth thy glorious way hast plough'd, And on the neck of crowned fortune proud, Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursued; While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued, And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renown'd than war: new foes arise, Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains : Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.
TO SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER.
VANE, young in years, but in sage counsel old, Than whom a better senator ne'er held The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repell'd The fierce Epirot, and the African bold, Whether to settle peace, or to unfold The drift of hollow states, hard to be spell'd; Then to advise how war may, best upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage: besides, to know Both spiritual power & civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learn'd, which few have The bounds of either sword to thee we owe: [done. Therefore, on thy firm hand Religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.
• Sir Henry Vane the younger was the chief of the Independents, and therefore Milton's friend. He was the contriver of the Solemn League and Covenant. In the pamphlets of that age he is called Sir Humorous Vanity. He was beheaded in 1662.
ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT, 1655. AVENGE, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them, who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks & stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groans, Who were thy sheep, and, in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heaven. Their martyr'd blood & ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having learn'd thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
WHEN I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he, returning, chide; "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" I fondly ask: but patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve, who only stand and wait."
LAWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, Where shall we sometimes meet, and, by the fire,
• The virtuous son was author of a work "Of our Communion with Angels," printed in 1646. The father was member for Herefordshire, in the Little Parliament which began in 1653, and was active in settling the protectorate of Cromwell.
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won From the hard season gaining? time will run On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire The frozen earth, and clothe, in fresh attire, The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice Warble immortal notes, and Tuscan air? He, who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise.
CYRIACK, whose grandsire, on the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause, Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others, at their bar, so often wrench; To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth, that after no repenting draws; Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intends, and what the French To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way; For other things, mild Heaven a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.
CYRIACK, this three-years-day, these eyes, though To outward view, of blemish or of spot, [clear, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot, Nor, to their idle orbs, doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them, overplied,
• Cyriack Skinner was one of the principal members of Harrington's political club. Wood says that he was "an ingenious young gentleman, and scholar to John Milton; which Skinner sometimes held the chair." -Ath. Oxon. ii. 591.
In liberty's detence, my noble task, Of which all Europe rings from side to side. [mask, This thought might lead me through the world's vain Content, though blind, had I no better guide.
METHOUGHT I saw my late espoused saint, Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and fain Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint, Purification in the old law did save, And such, as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven, without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind : Her face was veil'd, yet, to my fancied sight, Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined So clear, as in no face with more delight. But O, as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night
• This Sonnet was written about the year 1656, on the death of his second wife, Catherine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock, of Hackney, a rigid sectarist. She died in child-bed of a daughter, within a year after their marriage. Milton had now been long totally blind.
MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.
THIS is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heaven's 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, And, with his Father, work us a perpetual peace.
That glorious form, that light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont, at Heaven's 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.
Say heavenly muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the Infant-God? Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, To welcome him to this his new abode, Now while the Heaven, by the sun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons
See how from far, upon the eastern road, The star-led wizards haste, with odours sweet: O run, prevent 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; From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.
• This Ode, in which the many learned allusions are highly poetical, was probably composed as a college exercise at Cambridge, our author being now only twenty-one years old. In the edition of 1645, in its title it is said to have been written in 1629.
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