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
country herbs dresses
Herbs, and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.
teaching england forget
Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live.
truth way walks
Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk.
truth encounters truth-and-falsehood
Let her (Truth) and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?
truth father stones
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones.
plato simple simplicity
Ornate rhetorick taught out of the rule of Plato.... To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less suttle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate.
sleep light digestion
His sleep Was aery light, from pure digestion bred.
eye squares trials
Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial To my proportion'd strength.
hurt unjust may
Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled.
light waiting darkness
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light; Besides what hope the never-ending flight Of future days may bring, what chance, what change Worth waiting--since our present lot appears For happy though but ill, for ill not worst, If we procure not to ourselves more woe.
crowns life-is shame
Death to life is crown or shame.
morning stars dancing
Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger, comes dancing from the east.
daughter shapes cups
Who knows not Circe, The daughter of the Sun , whose charmed cup Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape, And downward fell into a groveling swine?
men redemption unjust
Say, heavenly pow'rs, where shall we find such love? Which of ye will be mortal to redeem Man's mortal crime, and just th' unjust to save.