January 2 The Harvard Classics, fifteen minutes a day
School-Day Poems of John Milton
At the age of sixteen, Milton first appeared before the public eye as a promising young poet. These early verses, written while he was a boy in school, indicate his brilliant future.
- First edition of Milton’s collected poems published Jan. 2, 1645.
From the 1930 Reading Guide
Poems
John Milton
THE POEMS OF JOHN MILTON
WRITTEN AT SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
1624–1632
ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY
(1629)
I
THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,Of wedded maid and Virgin Mother born,Our great redemption from above did bring;For so the holy sages once did sing,That he our deadly forfeit should release,And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
II
That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-tableTo sit the midst of Trinal Unity,He laid aside, and, here with us to be,Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
III
Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred veinAfford a present to the Infant God?Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,To welcome him to this his new abode,Now while the heaven, by the Sun’s team untrod,Hath took no print of the approaching light,And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?
IV
See how from far upon the Eastern roadThe star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode,And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet;Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.
THE HYMN
I
It was the winter wild,While the heaven-born childAll meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;Nature, in awe to him,Had doffed her gaudy trim,With her great Master so to sympathize:It was no season then for herTo wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.
II
Only with speeches fairShe woos the gentle airTo hide her guilty front with innocent snow,And on her naked shame,Pollute with sinful blame,The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;Confounded, that her Maker’s eyesShould look so near upon her foul deformities.
III
But he, her fears to cease,Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:She, crowned with olive green, came softly slidingDown through the turning sphere,His ready Harbinger,With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;And, waving wide her myrtle wand,She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
IV
No war, or battail’s sound,Was heard the world around;The idle spear and shield were high uphung;The hookèd chariot stood,Unstained with hostile blood;The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;And Kings sat still with awful eye,As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
V
But peaceful was the nightWherein the Prince of LightHis reign of peace upon the earth began.The winds, with wonder whist,Smoothly the waters kissed,Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,Who now hath quite forgot to rave,While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave.
VI
The stars, with deep amaze,Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,Bending one way their precious influence,And will not take their flight,For all the morning light,Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;But in their glimmering orbs did glow,Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
VII
And, though the shady gloomHad given day her room,The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,And hid his head for shame,As his inferior flameThe new-enlightened world no more should need:He saw a greater Sun appearThan his bright Throne or burning axletree could bear.
VIII
The Shepherds on the lawn,Or ere the point of dawn,Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;Full little thought they thanThat the mighty PanWas kindly come to live with them below:Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
IX
When such music sweetTheir hearts and ears did greetAs never was by mortal finger strook,Divinely-warbled voiceAnswering the stringèd noise,As all their souls in blissful rapture took:The air, such pleasure loth to lose,With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
X
Nature, that heard such soundBeneath the hollow roundOf Cynthia’s seat the airy Region thrilling,Now was almost wonTo think her part was done,And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:She knew such harmony aloneCould hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.
XI
At last surrounds their sightA globe of circular light,That with long beams the shamefaced Night arrayed;The helmèd CherubimAnd sworded SeraphimAre seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,Harping in loud and solemn quire,With unexpressive notes, to Heaven’s newborn Heir.
XII
Such music (as ’tis said)Before was never made,But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,While the Creator greatHis constellations set,And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,And cast the dark foundations deep,And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.
XIII
Ring out, ye crystal spheres!Once bless our human ears,If ye have power to touch our senses so;And let your silver chimeMove in melodious time;And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow;And with your ninefold harmonyMake up full consort to the angelic symphony.
XIV
For, if such holy songEnwrap our fancy long,Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold;And speckled VanityWill sicken soon and die,And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;And Hell itself will pass away,And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.
XV
Yes, Truth and Justice thenWill down return to men,The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;And Mercy set between,Throned in celestial sheen,With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;And Heaven, as at some festival,Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.
XVI
But wisest Fate says No,This must not yet be so;The Babe lies yet in smiling infancyThat on the bitter crossMust redeem our loss,So both himself and us to glorify:Yet first, to those ychained in sleep,The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,
XVII
With such a horrid clangAs on Mount Sinai rang,While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:The aged Earth, aghastWith terror of that blast,Shall from the surface to the centre shake,When, at the world’s last sessiön,The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
XVIII
And then at last our blissFull and perfect is,But now begins; for from this happy dayThe Old Dragon under ground,In straiter limits bound,Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
XIX
The Oracles are dumb;No voice or hideous humRuns through the archèd roof in words deceiving.Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine,With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.
XX
The lonely mountains o’er,And the resounding shore,A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;From haunted spring, and daleEdgèd with poplar pale,The parting Genius is with sighing sent;With flower-inwoven tresses tornThe Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
XXI
In consecrated earth,And on the holy hearth,The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;In urns, and altars round,A drear and dying soundAffrights the Flamens at their service quaint;And the chill marble seems to sweat,While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.
XXII
Peor and BaälimForsake their temples dim,With that twice-battered god of Palestine;And moonèd Ashtaroth,Heaven’s Queen and Mother both,Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine:The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.
XXIII
And sullen Moloch, fled,Hath left in shadows dreadHis burning idol all of blackest hue;In vain with cymbals’ ringThey call the grisly king,In dismal dance about the furnace blue;The brutish gods of Nile as fast,Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.
XXIV
Nor is Osiris seenIn Memphian grove or green,Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;Nor can he be at restWithin his sacred chest;Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;In vain, with timbreled anthems dark,The sable-stolèd Sorcerers bear his worshiped ark.
XXV
He feels from Juda’s landThe dreaded Infant’s hand;The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;Nor all the gods besideLonger dare abide,Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew.
XXVI
So, when the Sun in bed,Curtained with cloudy red,Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,The flocking shadows paleTroop to the infernal jail,Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave,And the yellow-skirted FaysFly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.
XXVII
But see! the Virgin blestHath laid her Babe to rest,Time is our tedious song should here have ending:Heaven’s youngest-teemèd starHath fixed her polished car,Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;And all about the courtly stableBright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.
A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM CXIV
(1624)
WHEN the blest seed of Terah’s faithful SonAfter long toil their liberty had won,And passed from Pharian fields to Canaan Land,Led by the strength of the Almighty’s hand,Jehovah’s wonders were in Israel shown,His praise and glory was in Israel known.That saw the troubled sea, and shivering fled,And sought to hide his froth-becurlèd headLow in the earth; Jordan’s clear streams recoil,As a faint host that hath received the foil.The high huge-bellied mountains skip like ramsAmongst their ewes, the little hills like lambs.Why fled the ocean? and why skipped the mountains?Why turnèd Jordan toward his crystal fountains?Shake, Earth, and at the presence be aghastOf Him that ever was and aye shall last,That glassy floods from rugged rocks can crush,And make soft rills from fiery flint-stones gush.
PSALM CXXXVI
LET us with a gladsome mindPraise the Lord for he is kind;For his mercies aye endure,Ever faithful, ever sure.
Let us blaze his Name abroad,For of gods he is the God;For his, &c.
O let us his praises tell,That doth the wrathful tyrants quell;For his, &c.
That with his miracles doth makeAmazèd Heaven and Earth to shake;For his, &c.
That by his wisdom did createThe painted heavens so full of state;For his, &c.
That did the solid Earth ordainTo rise above the watery plain;For his, &c.
That by his all-commanding might,Did fill the new-made world with light;For his, &c.
And caused the golden-tressèd SunAll the day long his course to run;For his, &c.
The hornèd Moon to shine by nightAmongst her spangled sisters bright;For his, &c.
He, with his thunder-clasping hand,Smote the first-born of Egypt land;For his, &c.
And, in despite of Pharao fell,He brought from thence his Israel;For his, &c.
The ruddy waves he cleft in twainOf the Erythraean main;For his, &c.
The floods stood still, like walls of glass,While the Hebrew bands did pass;For his, &c.
But full soon they did devourThe tawny King with all his power;For his, &c.
His chosen people he did blessIn the wasteful Wilderness;For his, &c.
In bloody battail he brought downKings of prowess and renown;For his, &c.
He foiled bold Seon and his host,That ruled the Amorrean coast;For his, &c.
And large-limbed Og he did subdue,With all his over-hardy crew;For his, &c.
And to his servant IsraelHe gave their land, therein to dwell;For his, &c.
He hath, with a piteous eye,Beheld us in our misery;For his, &c.
And freed us from the slaveryOf the invading enemy;For his, &c.
All living creatures he doth feed,And with full hand supplies their need;For his, &c.
Let us, therefore, warble forthHis mighty majesty and worth;For his, &c.
That his mansion hath on high,Above the reach of mortal eye;For his mercies aye endure,Ever faithful, ever sure.
The poem that begins at “ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT” low on page 18 runs on past the assigned pages; the reading stops before it.
Volume 4, pages 7–18 · See the scanned page on archive.org
This is the reading for January 2 in Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (1930 edition), page 24. There the assignment reads “Vol. 4, pp. 7–18.” Read it in the guide.