Selected Poems: Milton

by John Milton

Overview

The poems of John Milton (1608-74) have inspired readers for generations and the selection in this new edition spans his entire career, from his earliest works to the magnificent epics of his later life. The devotional ‘On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity’, his first great poem, anticipates the probing religious questions of Paradise Lost. Works such as ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’ consider divisions of loyalties, while ‘A Masque’ (‘Comus’) explores Milton’s great theme of temptation, and the pastoral elegy ‘Lycidas’ contemplates mortality and the meaning of human life. This volume includes considerable selections from Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained - Milton’s late epics on the Fall of Man and Christ’s temptation in the wilderness - and the complete Samson Agonistes, in which the great hero undergoes a profound crisis of faith in his final hours.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141932170
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	09/27/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	665 KB

About the Author

John Milton was born in London in 1608 and studied at the University of Cambridge. He originally planned to become a clergyman, but abandoned those ambitions to become a poet. Political in his writings, he served a government post during the time of the Commonwealth. By 1660, he was completely blind but continued to write, finishing Paradise Lost in 1667 and Paradise Regained in 1671. He died in 1674.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough

I

O fairest Flower, no sooner blown but blasted,
II

For since grim Aquilo, his charioter,
III

So, mounting up in icy-pearled car,
IV

Yet thou art not inglorious in thy fate;
V

Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead,
VI

Resolve me, then, O Soul most surely blest
VII

Wert thou some Star, which from the ruined roof Of shaked Olympus by mischance didst fall;
VIII

Or wert thou that just Maid who once before Forsook the hated earth, oh! tell me sooth,
IX

Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
X

But oh! why didst thou not stay here below To bless us with thy heaven-loved innocence,
XI

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

I

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
II

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
III

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Afford a present to the Infant God?
IV

See how from far upon the Eastern road The star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!
The Hymn

I

    It was the winter wild,
II

      Only with speeches fair
III

    But he, her fears to cease,
IV

      No war, or battails sound,
V

        But peaceful was the night
VI

      The stars, with deep amaze,
VII

      And, though the shady gloom
VIII

    The Shepherds on the lawn,
IX

    When such music sweet
X

    Nature, that heard such sound
XI

    At last surrounds their sight
XII

    Such music (as 'tis said)
XIII

    Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
XIV

    For, if such holy song
XV

    Yes, Truth and Justice then
XVI

    But wisest Fate says No,
XVII

    With such a horrid clang
XVIII

    And then at last our bliss
XIX

    The Oracles are dumb;
XX

    The lonely mountains o'er,
XXI

    In consecrated earth,
XXII

    Peor and Baalim
XXIII

    And sullen Moloch, fled,
XXIV

    Nor is Osiris seen
XXV

    He feels from Judas land
XXVI

    So, when the Sun in bed,
XXVII

    But see! the Virgin blest
Song on May Morning

Now the bright morning-star, Days harbinger,
Sonnet to the Nightingale

O Nightingale that on yon blooming spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
On Shakespeare

What needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones,
On His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-Three

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough (1626), 1,
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity (1629), 4,
Song on May Morning (ca. 1630), 13,
Sonnet to the Nightingale (ca. 1630), 13,
On Shakespeare (1630), 14,
On His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-Three (1631), 14,
Arcades(ca. 1632), 15,
At a Solemn Music (ca. 1632), 18,
L'Allegro (ca. 1632), 19,
Il Penseroso (ca. 1632), 23,
Comus: A Mask (1634), 28,
Lycidas (1637), 56,
When the Assault Was Intended to the City (1642), 61,
On the Same (1645), 62,
On the Lord General Fairfax at the Siege of Colchester (1648), 62,
To the Lord General Cromwell, on the Proposals of Certain Ministers at the Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel (1652), 63,
On His Blindness (ca. 1652–1655), 64,
On the Late Massacre in Piemont (1655), 64,
On His Deceased Wife (1658), 65,
Samson Agonistes (?; published 1671), 65,
Alphabetical List of Titles, 111,
Alphabetical List of First Lines, 113,