Il Penseroso by John Milton

Hence, vain deluding joys,
The brood of folly without father bred,
How little you bestead,
Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,
And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,
As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the sunbeams,
Or likest hovering dreams,
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail thou Goddess sage and holy,
Hail divinest Melancholy,
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The Sea-Nymphs, and their pow'rs offended.
Yet thou art higher far descended;
Thee bright-haired Vesta long of yore
To solitary Saturn bore;
His daughter she (in Saturn's reign
Such mixture was not held a stain).
Oft in glimmering bow'rs and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And sable stole of cypres lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn:
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast.
And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing.
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure;
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The Cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along,
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest, saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,
Gently o'er th' accustomed oak;
Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among
I woo, to hear thy even-song;
And missing thee, 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.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound,
Over some wide-watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,
To bless the doors from nightly harm:
Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen in some high lonely tow'r,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds, or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind, that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook:
And of those Demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptered pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine,
Or what (though rare) of later age
Ennobled hath the buskined stage.
But, O sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musaeus from his bower,
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as warbled to the string
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek.
Or call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That owned the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wondrous horse of brass
On which the Tartar king did ride;
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited Morn appear,
Not tricked and frounced as she was wont
With the Attic Boy to hunt,
But kerchiefed in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or ushered with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves
With minute drops from off the eaves.
And when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown that Sylvan loves
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe with heaved stroke
Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honeyed thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feathered Sleep;
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in airy stream
Of lively portraiture displayed,
Softly on my eyelids laid.
And as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.
But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light:
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full voiced choir below,
In service high, and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that heav'n doth show,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
These pleasures, Melancholy, give,
And I with thee will choose to live.

John Milton, English poet John MiltonJohn Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, most famous for his blank verse epic Paradise Lost. He is also remembered for authoring the brief epic Paradise Regained, the closet drama Samson Agonistes, the monody Lycidas, and Areopagitica, a prose work that defends the freedom of the press.

Family life and early influences

John Milton’s father, John Milton Sr. (1562? – 1647), moved to London around 1583 having just been disinherited for concealing his Protestantism (and an English Bible) by his devout Catholic father, Richard Milton, who was a wealthy landowner in Oxfordshire.

In 1600, John Milton Sr. was admitted to the Company of Scriveners (notaries), and probably married Sara Jeffrey (1572 – 1637), the poet’s mother, around the same time. John Milton Sr’s relative prosperity, later described by his grandson, Edward Phillips, as "a competent Estate, whereby he was enabled to make a handsom Provision for the Education and Maintenance of his Children," financed the young poet’s various private tutors (though only Thomas Young, a Scots Presbyterian is known), a place at St Paul's School in London, and study at Christ's College, Cambridge.

On November 12, 1656, Milton married Katherine Woodcock. She died on February 3, 1658, less than 4 months after giving birth to their daughter, Katherine, who died on March 17.

On February 24, 1663, Milton married Elizabeth Minshull, who cared for him until his death.

Religious Beliefs

John Milton was originally destined to a ministerial career, but his independent spirit led him to give up this career, and, as he said, to "prefer a blameless silence before the sacred office of speaking bought and begun with servitude and forswearing." He spent five quiet years at Horton, Berkshire a small village near Windsor where his family rented a house between 1632 and 1640, reading and writing.

His discussions with Hartlib and Comenius led him to write in 1644 a short tract (On Education) urging a reform of the national universities; and in the same year appeared the most popular of his prose writings, Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.

Milton's religious position, partially expressed in the treatises named above and in his Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes and Considerations touching the Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings out of the Church (1659), is most clearly described in the posthumous and apparently unfinished De Doctrina Christiana, the manuscript of which, long lost, was discovered only in 1823.

A number of recent Milton scholars believe De Doctrina Christiana was, like his Artis Logicae, a modification and revision of the writings of others, and since it was incomplete, they conclude "[W]e cannot know what other changes, especially what deletions of doctrines to which he did not subscribe, Milton would have made in completing his task [of revision]" (Campbell, 1996).

If, however, De Doctrina Christiana accurately represents Milton's opinions, we would find that his religious point of view is entirely subjective and individualistic; that is, his faith would be deduced from Scripture by the inner illumination of the Spirit, not tied to human traditions.

It would, therefore, not be surprising to find him taking his own view on the Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost, predestination, the creation of the world, etc., as also in regard to practical questions such as marriage, infant baptism, and the observance of the sabbath.

What we find in the book is not a complete, scientific treatment of doctrine in the modern sense but an exposition of the clear and universally acceptable teaching of scripture.