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
hope dark science
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse Without all hope of day!
science missing impossible
Th'invention all admir'd, and each, how he to be th'inventor miss'd; so easy it seem'd once found, which yet unfound most would have thought impossible.
stars heart science
Aristotle ... imputed this symphony of the heavens ... this music of the spheres to Pythagorus. ... But Pythagoras alone of mortals is said to have heard this harmony ... If our hearts were as pure, as chaste, as snowy as Pythagoras' was, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars.
science moon night
By night the Glass Of Galileo ... observes Imagin'd Land and Regions in the Moon.
moving science moon
He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield Ethereal temper, massy, large and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening from the top of Fésolè, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe.
obscure palpable uncouth
Through the palpable obscure find out / His uncouth way.
rude winter
It was the winter wild, / While the Heaven-born child, / All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies.
among faithful
The seraph Abdiel, faithful found, / Among the faithless, faithful only he.
contagion flashy foul hungry lean mist pipes rank rot sheep songs wretched
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs / Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw, / The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, / But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, / Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.
embryos
Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars / White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.
shades
Fled / Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.
cricket far resort save
Far from all resort of mirth, / Save the cricket on the hearth!
farewell fields hail happy joy
Farewell happy fields / Where joy for ever dwells: Hail horrors, hail!
affected cloak dull fear luke name seldom themselves
Fear and dull disposition, luke warmness and sloth, are not seldom wont to cloak themselves under the affected name of Moderation.