Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Milton

by John Milton

That I fall down and worship thee as God?

  Get thee behind me; plain thou now appear’st

  That Evil one, Satan for ever damn’d.

  195

  To whom the Fiend with fear abasht reply’d.

  Be not so sore offended, Son of God;

  Though Sons of God both Angels are and Men,

  If I to try whether in higher sort

  Then these thou bear’st that title, have propos’d

  200

  What both from Men and Angels I receive,

  Tetrarchs26 of fire, air, flood, and on the earth

  Nations besides from all the quarter’d winds,

  God of this world invok’t and world beneath;

  Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold

  205

  To me so fatal, me it most concerns.

  The tryal hath indamag’d thee no way,

  Rather more honour left and more esteem;

  Me naught advantag’d, missing what I aim’d.

  Therefore let pass, as they are transitory,

  210

  The Kingdoms of this world; I shall no more

  Advise thee, gain them as thou canst, or not.

  And thou thy self seem’st otherwise inclin’d

  Then to a worldly Crown, addicted more

  To contemplation and profound dispute,

  215

  As by that early action may be judg’d,

  When slipping from thy Mothers eye thou went’st

  Alone into the Temple;27 there wast found

  Among the gravest Rabbies disputant

  On points and questions fitting Moses Chair,

  220

  Teaching not taught; the childhood shews the man,

  As morning shews the day. Be famous then

  By wisdom; as thy Empire must extend,

  So let extend thy mind o’re all the world,

  In knowledge, all things in it comprehend,

  225

  All knowledge is not couch’t in Moses Law,

  The Pentateuch28 or what the Prophets wrote,

  The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach

  To admiration, led by Natures light;

  And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,

  230

  Ruling them by perswasion as thou mean’st,

  Without thir learning how wilt thou with them,

  Or they with thee hold conversation meet?

  How wilt thou reason with them, how refute

  Thir Idolisms, Traditions, Paradoxes?

  235

  Error by his own arms is best evinc’t.

  Look once more e’re we leave this specular Mount

  Westward, much nearer by Southwest, behold

  Where on th’ Ægean shore a City stands

  Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,

  240

  Athens the eye of Greece, Mother of Arts

  And Eloquence, native to famous wits

  Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,

  City or Suburban, studious walks and shades;

  See there the Olive Grove of Academe,

  245

  Plato’s retirement, where the Attic Bird29

  Trills her thick-warbl’d notes the summer long,

  There flowrie hill Hymettus with the sound

  Of Bees industrious murmur oft invites

  To studious musing; there Ilissus rouls

  250

  His whispering stream; within the walls then view

  The schools of antient Sages; his30 who bred

  Great Alexander to subdue the world,

  Lyceum there, and painted Stoa31 next:

  There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power

  255

  Of harmony in tones and numbers hit

  By voice or hand, and various-measur’d verse,

  Æolian charms and Dorian Lyric Odes,32

  And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,

  Blind Melesigenes thence Homer call’d,

  260

  Whose Poem Phœbus challeng’d for his own.

  Thence what the lofty grave Tragœdians taught

  In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best

  Of moral prudence, with delight receiv’d

  In brief sententious precepts, while they treat

  265

  Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;

  High actions, and high passions best describing:

  Thence to the famous Orators repair,

  Those antient, whose resistless eloquence

  Wielded at will that fierce Democratic,

  270

  Shook the Arsenal and fulmin’d over Greece,

  To Macedon, and Artaxerxes33 Throne;

  To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,

  From Heav’n descended to the low-rooft house

  Of Socrates, see there his Tenement,

  275

  Whom well inspir’d the Oracle pronounc’d

  Wisest of men; from whose mouth issu’d forth

  Mellifluous streams that water’d all the schools

  Of Academics old and new, with those

  Sirnam’d Peripatetics,34 and the Sect

  280

  Epicurean, and the Stoic severe;

  These here revolve, or, as thou lik’st, at home,

  Till time mature thee to a Kingdom’s waight;

  These rules will render thee a King compleat

  Within thy self, much more with Empire joyn’d.

  285

  To whom our Saviour sagely thus repli’d.

  Think not but that I know these things, or think

  I know them not; not therefore am I short

  Of knowing what I ought: he who receives

  Light from above, from the fountain of light,

  290

  No other doctrine needs, though granted true;

  But these are false, or little else but dreams,

  Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.

  The first and wisest of them all35 profess’d

  To know this only, that he nothing knew;

  295

  The next36 to fabling fell and smooth conceits,

  A third sort37 doubted all things, though plain sence;

  Others38 in vertue plac’d felicity,

  But vertue joyn’d with riches and long life,

  In corporal pleasure he,39 and careless ease,

  300

  The Stoic last in Philosophic pride,

  By him call’d vertue; and his vertuous man,

  Wise, perfect in himself, and all possessing

  Equal to God, oft shames not to prefer,

  As fearing God nor man, contemning all

  305

  Wealth, pleasure, pain or torment, death and life,

  Which when he lists, he leaves, or boasts he can,

  For all his tedious talk is but vain boast,

  Or subtle shifts conviction to evade.

  Alas what can they teach, and not mislead;

  310

  Ignorant of themselves, of God much more,

  And how the world began, and how man fell

  Degraded by himself, on grace depending?

  Much of the Soul they talk, but all awrie,

  And in themselves seek vertue, and to themselves

  315

  All glory arrogate, to God give none,

  Rather accuse him under usual names,

  Fortune and Fate, as one regardless quite

  Of mortal things. Who therefore seeks in these

  True wisdom, finds her not, or by delusion

  320

  Far worse, her false resemblance only meets,

  An empty cloud. However many books

  Wise men have said are wearisom; who reads

  Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

  A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

  325

  (And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seek)

  Uncertain and
unsettl’d still remains,

  Deep verst in books and shallow in himself,

  Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,

  And trifles for choice matters, worth a spunge;

  330

  As Children gathering pibles on the shore.

  Or if I would delight my private hours

  With Music or with Poem, where so soon

  As in our native Language can I find

  That solace? All our Law and Story strew’d

  335

  With Hymns, our Psalms with artful terms inscrib’d,

  Our Hebrew Songs and Harps in Babylon,

  That pleas’d so well our Victors ear, declare

  That rather Greece from us these Arts deriv’d;

  Ill imitated, while they loudest sing

  340

  The vices of thir Deities, and thir own

  In Fable, Hymn, or Song, so personating

  Thir Gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.

  Remove their swelling Epithetes thick laid

  As varnish on a Harlots cheek, the rest,

  345

  Thin sown with aught of profit or delight,

  Will far be found unworthy to compare

  With Sion’s songs, to all true tasts excelling,

  Where God is prais’d aright, and Godlike men,

  The Holiest of Holies, and his Saints;

  350

  Such are from God inspir’d, not such from thee;

  Unless where moral vertue is express’t

  By light of Nature not in all quite lost.

  Thir Orators thou then extoll’st, as those

  The top of Eloquence, Statists40 indeed,

  355

  And lovers of thir Country, as may seem;

  But herein to our Prophets far beneath,

  As men divinely taught, and better teaching

  The solid rules of Civil Government

  In thir majestic unaffected stile

  360

  Then all the Oratory of Greece and Rome.

  In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,

  What makes a Nation happy, and keeps it so,

  What ruins Kingdoms, and lays Cities flat;

  These only with our Law best form a King.

  365

  So spake the Son of God; but Satan now

  Quite at a loss, for all his darts were spent,

  Thus to our Saviour with stern brow reply’d.

  Since neither wealth, nor honour, arms nor arts,

  Kingdom nor Empire pleases thee, nor aught

  370

  By me propos’d in life contemplative,

  Or active, tended on by glory, or fame,

  What dost thou in this World? the Wilderness

  For thee is fittest place, I found thee there,

  And thither will return thee, yet remember

  375

  What I foretell thee, soon thou shalt have cause

  To wish thou never hadst rejected thus

  Nicely or cautiously my offer’d aid,

  Which would have set thee in short time with ease

  On David’s Throne; or Throne of all the world,

  380

  Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season,

  When Prophesies of thee are best fullfill’d.

  Now contrary, if I read aught in Heav’n,

  Or Heav’n write aught of Fate, by what the Stars

  Voluminous, or single characters,

  385

  In their conjunction met, give me to spell,

  Sorrows, and labours, opposition, hate,

  Attends thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries,

  Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death.

  A Kingdom they portend thee, but what Kingdom,

  390

  Real or Allegoric I discern not,

  Now when, eternal sure, as without end,

  Without beginning; for no date prefixt

  Directs me in the Starry Rubric set.

  So saying he took (for still he knew his power

  395

  Not yet expir’d) and to the Wilderness

  Brought back the Son of God, and left him there,

  Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose,

  As day-light sunk, and brought in lowring night

  Her shadowy off-spring unsubstantial both,

  400

  Privation meer of light and absent day.

  Our Saviour meek and with untroubl’d mind

  After his aerie jaunt, though hurried sore,

  Hungry and cold betook him to his rest,

  Wherever, under some concourse of shades

  405

  Whose branching arms thick intertwin’d might shield

  From dews and damps of night his shelter’d head,

  But shelter’d slept in vain, for at his head

  The Tempter watch’d, and soon with ugly dreams

  Disturb’d his sleep; and either Tropic now

  410

  ’Gan thunder, and both ends of Heav’n, the Clouds

  From many a horrid rift abortive pour’d

  Fierce rain with lightning mixt, water with fire

  In ruin reconcil’d: nor slept the winds

  Within thir stony caves, but rush’d abroad

  415

  From the four hinges of the world, and fell

  On the vext Wilderness, whose tallest Pines,

  Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest Oaks

  Bow’d their Stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,

  Or torn up sheer: ill wast thou shrouded then,

  420

  O patient Son of God, yet only stoodst

  Unshaken; nor yet staid the terror there,

  Infernal Ghosts, and Hellish Furies, round

  Environ’d thee, some howl’d, some yell’d, some shriek’d,

  Some bent at thee thir fiery darts, while thou

  425

  Sat’st unappall’d in calm and sinless peace.

  Thus pass’d the night so foul till morning fair

  Came forth with Pilgrim steps in amice41 gray;

  Who with her radiant finger still’d the roar

  Of thunder, chas’d the clouds, and laid the winds,

  430

  And grisly Spectres, which the Fiend had rais’d

  To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.

  And now the Sun with more effectual beams

  Had chear’d the face of Earth, and dry’d the wet

  From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds

  435

  Who all things now behold more fresh and green,

  After a night of storm so ruinous,

  Clear’d up their choicest notes in bush and spray

  To gratulate the sweet return of morn;

  Nor yet amidst this joy and brightest morn

  440

  Was absent, after all his mischief done,

  The Prince of darkness, glad would also seem

  Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came,

  Yet with no new device, they all were spent,

  Rather by this his last affront resolv’d,

  445

  Desperate of better course, to vent his rage,

  And mad despight to be so oft repell’d.

  Him walking on a Sunny hill he found,

  Back’d on the North and West by a thick wood,

  Out of the wood he starts in wonted shape;

  450

  And in a careless mood thus to him said.

  Fair morning yet betides thee Son of God,

  After a dismal night; I heard the rack

  As Earth and Skie would mingle; but my self

  Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them

  455

  As dangerous to the pillard frame of Heav’n,

  Or to the Earths dark basis underneath,

  Are to the main42 as inconsiderable,

  And harmless, if not wholsom, as a sneeze43

  To mans le
ss universe, and soon are gone;

  460

  Yet as being oft times noxious where they light

  On man, beast, plant, wastful and turbulent,

  Like turbulencies in th’ affairs of men,

  Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point,

  They oft fore-signifie and threaten ill:

  465

  This Tempest at this Desert most was bent;

  Of men at thee, for only thou here dwell’st.

  Did I not tell thee, if thou didst reject

  The perfet season offer’d with my aid

  To win thy destin’d seat, but wilt prolong

  470

  All to the push of Fate, persue thy way

  Of gaining David’s Throne no man knows when,

  For both the when and how is no where told,

  Thou shalt be what thou art ordain’d, no doubt;

  For Angels have proclaim’d it, but concealing

  475

  The time and means: each act is rightliest done,

  Not when it must, but when it may be best.

  If thou observe not this, be sure to find,

  What I foretold thee, many a hard assay

  Of dangers, and adversities and pains,

  480

  E’re thou of Israel’s Scepter get fast hold;

  Whereof this ominous night that clos’d thee round,

  So many terrors, voices, prodigies

  May warn thee, as a sure fore-going sign.

  So talk’d he, while the Son of God went on

  485

  And staid not, but in brief him answer’d thus.

  Mee worse then wet thou find’st not; other harm

  Those terrors which thou speak’st of, did me none;

  I never fear’d they could, though noising loud

  And threatning nigh; what they can do as signs

  490

  Betok’ning, or ill boding, I contemn

  As false portents, not sent from God, but thee;

  Who knowing I shall raign past thy preventing,

  Obtrud’st thy offer’d aid, that I accepting

  At least might seem to hold all power of44 thee,

  495