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JOHN MILTON

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TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL MAY, 1652

On the Proposals of Certain Ministers at the
Committee for Propagation of the Gospel
Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a
cloud

Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast
ploughed,

And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud 5 Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued,

While Darwen stream,1 with blood of Scots imbrued,

And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud,

And Worcester's laureate wreath: yet much remains

To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renowned than war:

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arise, new foes Threatening to bind our souls with secular

chains.

Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.4

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose
bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our fathers worshipped stocks

and stones,

Forget not in thy book record their groans 5
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient
fold

Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their

moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To heaven. Their martyred blood and

ashes sow

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O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway

1

near Preston, where Cromwell defeated the royalist Scots in Aug., 1648 2 Sept., 1650 3 Sept., 1651 Cf. Lycidas, ll. 113-131.

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Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear

To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun or moon or star throughout the year, 5 Or man or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot

Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?

The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied

ΙΟ

In liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe talks from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask

Content, though blind, had I no better guide.

1 the Pope (alluding to his triple crown) 2 The Puritans interpreted the biblical denunciations of Babylon as directed prophetically against the Catholic Church. 3 his ability to write conscious

ness

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ΙΟ

In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that
flowed

Fast by the oracle of God, I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues 15
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from
the first

Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,

5

20

Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
Say first
for Heaven hides nothing from

Thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell

cause

25

say first what

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And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
And shook his throne. What though the
field be lost?

105

109

All is not lost the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome;
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire 2- that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since by fate the strength of
gods

116 And this empyreal 3 substance cannot fail; Since, through experience of this great event, In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,

1 continued endeavor 2 authority and power 3 divine, cf. 1. 138

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Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there; 185
And, reassembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend 5
Our Enemy, our own loss how repair,
How overcome this dire calamity,
What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
If not, what resolution from despair.”

191

Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides,
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge 196
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon,7 whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast 200
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, 205
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests 10 the sea, and wishèd morn delays.
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-
Fiend lay,

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Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and, rolled

In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
226
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed3 with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singèd bottom all involved 236
With stench and smoke: such resting found
the sole

231

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A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same, 256
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at
least

We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy,' will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and co-partners of our loss, 265
Lie thus astonished 2 on the oblivious3 pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in
Hell?"
270

So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub Thus answered: - "Leader of those armies bright

Which but the Omnipotent none could have foiled,

If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge

277

Of hope in fears and dangers -- heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed: 281
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth!"

He scarce had ceased when the superior
Fiend

Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, 285 Behind him cast. The broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

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