For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 170 And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, 175 With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, Thus sang the uncouth swain to th' oaks and rills, 168. Day-star = sun. "Till thy day-star from on high visit me." 186. Milton here speaks in his own voice, not in that of the feigned shepherd. 190. Stretch'd out all the hills, i. e. made long shadows. 193. A line often misquoted, fields being read for woods. Milton was on the eve of his departure for Italy. 10 SONNETS. I. ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE. How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year? My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. 5 Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, That I to manhood am arriv'd so near, And inward ripenes doth much less appear, That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure ev'n To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great task-master's eye. II. TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX. Addressed to Sir Thomas Fairfax at the siege of Colchester, 1648. FAIRFAX, whose name in arms through Europe rings, 5 Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings Victory home, though new rebellions raise 10 Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays Her broken league to imp their serpent wings. O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand, (For what can war, but endless war still breed?) Till truth and right from violence be freed, And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand Of public fraud. In vain doth valour bleed, While avarice and rapine share the land. III. TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL. CROMWELL, our chief of men, who through a cloud To peace and truth thy glorious way hast s And on the neck of crowned fortune proud Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pur 10 sued, While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued, And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much re mains To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renown'd than war: new foes arise Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains: 7. A reaction had come in the Civil War, and the Scotch declared for the king; insurrections were also springing up in Wales, in Kent, and in London itself. This was shortly before the final success of Cromwell. 2. Written in 1652. 8. The battle of Dunbar was fought September 3, 1650. 9 The battle of Worcester was a year later to a day. It was the crowning success of the Parliamentary army. Help us to save free conscience from the paw IV. 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 re pell'd The fierce Epirot and the African bold, 5 Whether to settle peace, or to unfold 10 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 pow'r and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learn't, which few have done : The bounds of either sword to thee we owe : Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans V. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT. AVENGE, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; 1. Vane was forty years old when the sonnet was addressed to him, and one of the most active men in the councils of the Commonwealth. Fifteen years before he had been a resident in Massachusetts. He was an eager, restless man, of high ideals and noble belief in tolerance. 10. In this sonnet and that to Cromwell, Milton gives voice to his strong plea for the separation of Church and State. 14. There may be a distant reference here to the term "eldest son of the Church” used of the King of Spain. 1. In January, 1655, the Turin government issued an edict Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worship't stocks and stones, 5 Forget not in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubl'd to the hills, and they 10 To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow VI. ON HIS BLINDNESS. 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, Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent 5 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, 10 And post o'er land and ocean without rest; chat the inhabitants of the Piedmont valley, who had for generations held a faith not unlike that of Luther, should conform to the Catholic religion. Three months' time was given them under On the seventeenth of April soldiers were threat of expulsion. let loose on the people and a terrible massacre followed. 13. Hunder'd. An interesting form in view of the familiar pronunciation. |