Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
John Milton. 16081674322. Light
HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born, | |
Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam | |
May I express thee unblam’d? since God is light, | |
And never but in unapproachèd light | |
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, | 5 |
Bright effluence of bright essence increate. | |
Or hear’st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, | |
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun, | |
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice | |
Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest | 10 |
The rising world of waters dark and deep, | |
Won from the void and formless infinite. | |
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing, | |
Escap’t the Stygian Pool, though long detain’d | |
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight | 15 |
Through utter and through middle darkness borne | |
With other notes then to th’ Orphean Lyre | |
I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night, | |
Taught by the heav’nly Muse to venture down | |
The dark descent, and up to reascend, | 20 |
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe, | |
And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou | |
Revisit’st not these eyes, that rowle in vain | |
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; | |
So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs, | 25 |
Or dim suffusion veild. Yet not the more | |
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt | |
Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill, | |
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief | |
Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath | 30 |
That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow, | |
Nightly I visit: nor somtimes forget | |
Those other two equal’d with me in Fate, | |
So were I equal’d with them in renown. | |
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides, | 35 |
And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old. | |
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move | |
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird | |
Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid | |
Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year | 40 |
Seasons return, but not to me returns | |
Day, or the sweet approach of Ev’n or Morn, | |
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose, | |
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; | |
But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark | 45 |
Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men | |
Cut off, and for the Book of knowledg fair | |
Presented with a Universal blanc | |
Of Natures works to mee expung’d and ras’d, | |
And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out. | 50 |
So much the rather thou Celestial light | |
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers | |
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence | |
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell | |
Of things invisible to mortal sight. | 55 |