Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton
    The Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton
    The Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton
    Ebook195 pages1 hour

    The Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton

    By John Milton

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    John Milton is most famously remembered for his epic narrative "Paradise Lost" and its sequel "Paradise Regained". In addition to these classic works Milton wrote several shorter pieces. These shorter works are collected together in this volume and include the following: On the Morning of Christ's Nativity; A Paraphrase on Psalm CXIV; Psalm CXXXVI; On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough; At a Vacation Exercise in the College, Part Latin, Part English; The Passion; On Shakespeare; On the University Carrier; Another on the Same; An Epitaph on the marchioness of Winchester; On His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-Three; L'Allegro; Il Penseroso; Sonnet to the Nightingale; Song on May Morning; On Time; At a Solemn Music; Upon the Circumcision; Arcades; Comus, a Mask; Lycidas; When the Assault was Intended to the City; To a Virtuous Young Lady; To the Lady Margaret Ley; On the Detraction which Followed upon my Writing Certain Treatises; On the Same; On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament; To Mr. H. Lawes on His Airs; On the Religious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson, my Christian Friend, deceased Dec. 16, 1646; On the Lord General Fairfax at the Siege of Colchester; To the Lord General Cromwell, on the Proposals of Certain Ministers at the Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel; To Sir Henry Vane the Younger; On the Late Massacre in Piemont; On His Blindness; To Mr. Lawrence; To Cyriack Skinner; To the Same; On his Deceased Wife; Milton’s Introduction to Samson Agonistes; and Samson Agonistes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2010
    ISBN9781420936797
    The Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton
    Author

    John Milton

    John Milton was a seventeenth-century English poet, polemicist, and civil servant in the government of Oliver Cromwell. Among Milton’s best-known works are the classic epic Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, considered one of the greatest accomplishments in English blank verse, and Samson Agonistes. Writing during a period of tremendous religious and political change, Milton’s theology and politics were considered radical under King Charles I, found acceptance during the Commonwealth period, and were again out of fashion after the Restoration, when his literary reputation became a subject for debate due to his unrepentant republicanism. T.S. Eliot remarked that Milton’s poetry was the hardest to reflect upon without one’s own political and theological beliefs intruding.

    Read more from John Milton

    Related to The Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Heroic Biography

      Nov 5, 2018

      Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, Viking, 1105 pages, $40/£35. ISBN 978–1101980996 Given his publisher’s claim that there have already been more than a thousand biographies of Churchill, not counting hundreds of specialist studies ran

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Pop-Up Literary Agency

      Jun 16, 2021

      The Pop-Up Literary Agency
      4 min read

    • Article

      Three Authors in Search of Melville

      Sep 25, 2017

      "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method." The post Three Authors in Search of Melville appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock

      Dec 9, 2020

      I’d gotten what I’d wanted—a room full of books and time enough to read them—but at a cost. The post A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      A 350th-Anniversary ‘Paradise Lost’ Reading List

      Feb 6, 2018

      Before John Milton could be a visionary writer, first he had to be a visionary reader. All poetry is supported by the accumulated scaffolding of tradition and defines itself in part by subverting that tradition. Milton was simultaneously partisan for

      16 min read

    • Article

      Russian Roulette

      Feb 1, 2021

      As a longterm fan of Dostoevsky (and yes, unusually for a 19th century literary novelist, he does have a kind of fan club, many of whom are adolescents high on the thrill of first encountering his freewheeling combo of philosophical pondering and jaz

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Coleridge Way

      Nov 5, 2021

      The Coleridge Way
      6 min read

    • Article

      Read a (Love) Letter From Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne

      Mar 16, 2017

      167 years ago today, Ticknor, Reed & Fields published The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel of repentance and slut-shaming. But actually, this isn’t about The Scarlet Letter—it’s about one of the most fascinating friendships in lite

      5 min read

    • Article

      'The World Broke In Two': Four Writers, One Transformational Year

      Jul 25, 2017

      Using excerpts from letters and diaries, historian and critic Bill Goldstein follows writers Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence and T. S. Eliot through the tumultuous literary year of 1922.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Sep 1, 2021

      Two Poems
      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      Moon river, swollen river, river of starholeand bright, harness river, lichen river,river we velvet with our filth.River of butter and river of witches, rivercracked open careful like egg, or burstapart, unleashing its violet load.River mouths, river

      2 min read

    • Article

      Absence of Inspiration, Absence of God: On Christian Wiman’s ‘He Held Radical Light’

      Oct 1, 2018

      1. One of the themes that speak most powerfully from Christian Wiman’s writings—poems, essays, memoirs—is that of the absence of inspiration or the absence of God. To begin with the first formulation, Wiman concedes of the texts most close to his hea

      8 min read

    • Article

      Poem Of The Week: The North Wind By Anne Brontë

      May 8, 2023

      That wind is from the North, I know it well;No other breeze could have so wild a swell.Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,Then faintly dies,And softly sighs,And moans and murmurs mournfully.I know its language; thus is speaks to me – ‘I have

      3 min read

    • Article

      RHYME & REASON

      May 17, 2021

      RHYME & REASON
      1 min read

    • Article

      One Night

      Sep 15, 2022

      The night looks wrapped in milky cotton. The full moon shines through from time to time when the fogbanks turn wispy under the stratus. The entire sea glows with greenish, phosphorescent sheets. It is hardly rumbling, because the fog muffles all soun

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Island (catullus 64)

      Mar 1, 2022

      Back then the evergreens tumbled downriverfrom the glaze-white runoff to the boot-stirred puddlesof amber young men who fulfilled our destiny,who clambered into ships, on horses, and in wagonspainting the newfound landscapes ours.Our calling was nobl

      9 min read

    • Article

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • Article

      Tessa Castro

      Mar 9, 2022

      IN COMPETITION No 277 you were invited to write a poem called Morning Sounds. The entries were vivid: half domestic, half outdoor. Tim Lloyd observed that ‘A bin lorry approaching in reverse/Sounds like an asthmatic seal.’ Liz Piper remembered, durin

      2 min read

    • Article

      In Memory Of Derek Alton Walcott

      Mar 15, 2018

      1 Island traffic slows to a haltas screeching gulls reluctantto lift heavenwardcongregate like mourners in saltcrustedkelp, as the repellentnews spreads to colder shores: Sir Derek is no more.Bandwidths, clogged by streamingtributes, carry the pitcho

      2 min read

    • Article

      Hello Darkness My Old Friend

      Jun 17, 2020

      Hello Darkness My Old Friend
      4 min read

    • Article

      Head In The Clouds

      Mar 4, 2021

      Head In The Clouds
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Remains Of The Day

      Jan 11, 2023

      The Remains Of The Day
      5 min read

    • Article

      Carningli

      Mar 22, 2024

      Carningli
      4 min read

    • Article

      Inferno Festival

      May 25, 2023

      Inferno Festival
      4 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Sep 4, 2018

      In London. England. Who knows why?Perhaps this rumpled guyFrom central casting or a page of Dickens.He’s taking ordinary usTo haunts of the illustrious,Where even dull pulse quickens. A red felt hat’s dark fingered brim,Food-spotted vest are—him.A mo

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Complete Shorter Poems of John Milton - John Milton

      THE COMPLETE

      SHORTER POEMS

      OF JOHN MILTON

      A Digireads.com Book

      Digireads.com Publishing

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3345-1

      Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3679-7

      This edition copyright © 2011

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      POEMS WRITTEN AT SCHOOL AND AT COLLEGE, 1624–1632

      ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY

      A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM CXIV

      PSALM CXXXVI

      ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT DYING OF A COUGH

      AT A VACATION EXERCISE IN THE COLLEGE, PART LATIN, PART ENGLISH

      THE PASSION

      ON SHAKESPEARE

      ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER

      ANOTHER ON THE SAME

      AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER

      ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE

      POEMS WRITTEN AT HORTON, 1632–1638

      L'ALLEGRO

      IL PENSEROSO

      SONNET TO THE NIGHTINGALE

      SONG ON MAY MORNING

      ON TIME

      AT A SOLEMN MUSIC

      UPON THE CIRCUMCISION

      ARCADES

      COMUS, A MASK

      LYCIDAS

      POEMS WRITTEN DURING THE CIVIL WAR AND THE PROTECTORATE, 1642–1658

      WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY

      TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY

      TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY

      ON THE DETRACTION WHICH FOLLOWED UPON MY WRITING CERTAIN TREATISES

      ON THE SAME

      ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT

      TO MR. H. LAWES ON HIS AIRS

      ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHERINE THOMSON, MY CHRISTIAN FRIEND, DECEASED DEC. 16, 1646

      ON THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX AT THE SIEGE OF COLCHESTER

      TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL, ON THE PROPOSALS OF CERTAIN MINISTERS AT THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL

      TO SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER

      ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT

      ON HIS BLINDNESS

      TO MR. LAWRENCE

      TO CYRIACK SKINNER

      TO THE SAME

      ON HIS DECEASED WIFE

      MILTON'S INTRODUCTION TO SAMSON AGONISTES

      SAMSON AGONISTES

      THE POEMS OF JOHN MILTON

      POEMS WRITTEN AT SCHOOL AND AT COLLEGE, 1624–1632

      ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY

      (1629)

      I

      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.

      II

      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.

      III

      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 bright?

      IV

      See how from far upon the Eastern road

      The star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!

      Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode,

      And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet;

      Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,

      And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,

      From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

      THE HYMN

      I

      It was the winter wild,

      While the heaven-born child

      All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

      Nature, in awe to him,

      Had doffed her gaudy trim,

      With her great Master so to sympathize:

      It was no season then for her

      To wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.

      II

      Only with speeches fair

      She woos the gentle air

      To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,

      And on her naked shame,

      Pollute with sinful blame,

      The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;

      Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

      Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

      III

      But he, her fears to cease,

      Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:

      She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding

      Down through the turning sphere,

      His ready Harbinger,

      With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;

      And, waving wide her myrtle wand,

      She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

      IV

      No war, or battail's sound,

      Was heard the world around;

      The idle spear and shield were high uphung;

      The hookèd chariot stood,

      Unstained with hostile blood;

      The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;

      And Kings sat still with awful eye,

      As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

      V

      But peaceful was the night

      Wherein the Prince of Light

      His reign of peace upon the earth began.

      The winds, with wonder whist,

      Smoothly the waters kissed,

      Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,

      Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

      While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

      VI

      The stars, with deep amaze,

      Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,

      Bending one way their precious influence,

      And will not take their flight,

      For all the morning light,

      Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;

      But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

      Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

      VII

      And, though the shady gloom

      Had given day her room,

      The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

      And hid his head of shame,

      As his inferior flame

      The new-enlightened world no more should need:

      He saw a greater Sun appear

      Than his bright Throne or burning axletree could bear.

      VIII

      The Shepherds on the lawn,

      Or ere the point of dawn,

      Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

      Full little thought they than

      That the mighty Pan

      Was kindly come to live with them below:

      Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

      Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

      IX

      When such music sweet

      Their hearts and ears did greet

      As never was by mortal finger strook,

      Divinely-warbled voice

      Answering the stringèd noise,

      As all their souls in blissful rapture took:

      The air, such pleasure loth to lose,

      With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

      X

      Nature, that heard such sound

      Beneath the hollow round

      Of Cynthia's seat the airy Region thrilling,

      Now was almost won

      To think her part was done,

      And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:

      She knew such harmony alone

      Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.

      XI

      At last surrounds their sight

      A globe of circular light,

      That with long beams the shamefaced Night arrayed;

      The helmèd Cherubim

      And sworded Seraphim

      Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,

      Harping in loud and solemn quire,

      With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's newborn Heir.

      XII

      Such music (as 'tis said)

      Before was never made,

      But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,

      While the Creator great

      His constellations set,

      And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,

      And cast the dark foundations deep,

      And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

      XIII

      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 of the angelic symphony.

      XIV

      For, if such holy song

      Enwrap our fancy long,

      Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold;

      And speckled Vanity

      Will sicken soon and die,

      And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;

      And Hell itself will pass away,

      And leave her dolorous mansions of the peering day.

      XV

      Yes, Truth and Justice then

      Will down return to men,

      The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;

      And Mercy set between,

      Throned in celestial sheen,

      With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;

      And Heaven, as at some festival,

      Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.

      XVI

      But wisest Fate says No,

      This must not yet be so;

      The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy

      That on the bitter cross

      Must redeem our loss,

      So both himself and us to glorify:

      Yet first, to those chained in sleep,

      The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

      XVII

      With such a horrid clang

      As on Mount Sinai rang,

      While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:

      The aged Earth, aghast

      With terror of that blast,

      Shall from the surface to the centre shake,

      When, at the world's last sessiön,

      The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

      XVIII

      And then at last our bliss

      Full and perfect is,

      But now begins; for from this happy day

      The Old Dragon under ground,

      In straiter limits bound,

      Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,

      And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,

      Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

      XIX

      The Oracles are dumb;

      No voice or hideous hum

      Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving.

      Apollo from his shrine

      Can no more divine,

      Will hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.

      No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,

      Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.

      XX

      The lonely mountains o'er,

      And the resounding shore,

      A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;

      Edgèd with poplar pale,

      From haunted spring, and dale

      The parting Genius is with sighing sent;

      With flower-inwoven tresses torn

      The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

      XXI

      In consecrated earth,

      And on the holy hearth,

      The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;

      In urns, and altars round,

      A drear and dying sound

      Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;

      And the chill marble seems to sweat,

      While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

      XXII

      Peor and Baälim

      Forsake their temples dim,

      With that twice-battered god of Palestine;

      And moonèd Ashtaroth,

      Heaven's Queen and Mother both,

      Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine:

      The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;

      In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

      XXIII

      And sullen Moloch, fled,

      Hath left in shadows dread

      His burning idol all of blackest hue;

      In vain with cymbals' ring

      They call the grisly king,

      In dismal dance about the furnace blue;

      The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

      Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

      XXIV

      Nor is Osiris seen

      In Memphian grove or green,

      Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;

      Nor can he be at rest

      Within his sacred chest;

      Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;

      In vain, with timbreled anthems dark,

      The sable-stolèd Sorcerers bear his worshiped ark.

      XXV

      He feels from Juda's land

      The dreaded Infant's hand;

      The rays of Bethlehem blind his

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1