John Milton
John Milton
John Miltonwas an English poet, polemicist, and man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost, written in blank verse...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 December 1608
change woods morrow
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
fate yield judging
Fate shall yield To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.
thinking wind deeds
Nor think thou with wind Of æry threats to awe whom yet with deeds Thou canst not.
soil fame plant
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.
sea land bent
So on this windy sea of land, the Fiend Walked up and down alone bent on his prey.
sports thinking hair
Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse; Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.
shepherds tales
And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale.
steps hell
Nor from hell One step no more than from himself can fly By change of place.
views sight black
But hail thou Goddess sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue.
light umpires safe
And I will place within them as a guide My umpire conscience, whom if they will hear Light after light well used they shall attain, And to the end persisting, safe arrive.
redemption hell lost
And now without redemption all mankind Must have been lost, adjudged to death and hell By doom severe.
clouds elements landscape
The low'ring element Scowls o'er the darken'd landscape.
men evil good-and-evil
As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of good and evil?
fate men shears
And sing to those that hold the vital shears; And turn the adamantine spindle round, On which the fate of gods and men is wound.