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
arabian bird knows lay nor second self woods
Like that self-begotten bird / In the Arabian woods embost, / That no second knows nor third, / And lay ere while a holocaust.
angel golden hovering thou welcome
O welcome pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, / Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings.
golden iron keys last metals pilot
Last came, and last did go, / The Pilot of the Galilean lake, / Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain, / (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
free themselves till
I form'd them free, and free they must remain, Till they enthral themselves
above according argue english-poet freely liberty
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties.
freely love serve stand
Freely we serve / Because we freely love, as in our will / To love or not; in this we stand or fall.
best retirement return short solitude sweet urges
For solitude is sometimes best society, And short retirement urges sweet return
blank book cheerful cut entrance fair knowledge men presented quite shut universal ways wisdom works
From the cheerful ways of men / Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair / Presented with a universal blank / Of nature's works to me expunged and razed, / And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
begin god great himself manner period reforming reveal
God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in His Church, even to the reforming of the Reformation itself. What does he then but reveal Himself to His servants, and as His manner is, first to His Englishmen?
father folly vain
Hence, vain deluding joys, / The brood of Folly without father bred.
conscience unsought virtue
Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,/ That would be wooed, and not unsought be won.
ambition choice heaven hell reign serve though worth
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition though in hell: Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven
daughter god law left reason rest sole
God so commanded, and left that command/ Sole daughter of his voice; the rest we live / Law to ourselves, our reason is our law.
god happiest thou thy
God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more / Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.