Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT (1655) AVENGE, O Lord, thy slaughtered Saints, whose bones Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe. ON HIS BLINDNESS (1655) 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; TO MR. LAWRENCE (1656) LAWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son, The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire He who of those delights can judge, and spare TO CYRIACK SKINNER CYRIACK, Whose grandsire on the royal bench 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. 88 SONNETS TO THE SAME (1655) CYRIACK, this three years' day these eyes, though clear, Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of which all Europe rings from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain Content, though blind, had I no better guide. ON HIS DECEASED WIFE (1658) 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, And such as yet once more I trust to have Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night. i PARADISE LOST 1658-1663 THE VERSE 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; graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse, than else they would have expresssd them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rime both in longer and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings—a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then of rime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of riming. THE FIRST BOOK THE ARGUMENT.-This First Book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject-Man's disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall-the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who, revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of Angels, was, by 1 into the command of God, driven out of Heaven, with all his crew, F MAN'S first disobedience, and the fruit OF Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the World, and all our woc, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed |