John Milton (1608 – 1674)
English poet and politician, most famous for his epic poem Paradise Lost.
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.
O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray
Warbl'st at eve, when all the woods are still.
I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'n's wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bowed,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging low with sullen roar.
His words ... like so many nimble and airy servitors trip about him at command.
Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?
Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
So little care they of beasts to make them men, that by their sorcerous doctrine of formalities, they take the way to transform them out of Christian men into judaizing beasts. Had they but taught the land, or suffered it to be taught, as Christ would it should have been in all plenteous dispensation of the word, then the poor mechanic might have so accustomed his ear to good teaching, as to have discerned between faithful teachers and false. But now, with a most inhuman cruelty, they who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness; just as the Pharisees their true fathers were wont, who could not endure that the people should be thought competent judges of Christ’s doctrine, although we know they judged far better than those great rabbis: yet “this people,” said they, “that know not the law is accursed.”
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.
Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war.
Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth.
New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ Large.
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).
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men.
From haunted spring and dale
Edged with poplar pale
The parting genius is with sighing sent.
None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license.