John Milton：Paradise Lost, L’allegro and Il Penseroso. "At A Solemn Music"

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Milton wrote poetry of such sublime beauty that he managed, through its universal influence, to transform the character of the English language. From his astonishing epic Paradise Lost, with its magnificent blank verse and mesmerizing characters, to the tragic brilliance of Samson Agonistes, Milton engaged the political and religious issues of his troubled times with subtlety and sophistication. His moving elegy “Lycidas,” written after the untimely drowning death of a friend, has been hailed as the greatest lyric poem in English. The classic shorter works, from the pastoral poems “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” to the enchanting masque Comus, to the intensely personal sonnets, share the grandeur and vitality of his epics; all serve as continual reminders of the heights the human imagination can achieve. With an introduction by Gordon Campbell.

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That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table,
To 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 Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford 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 heav'n, 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 road
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed 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.

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John Milton wrote poetry of such sublime beauty that he managed, through its universal influence, to transform the character of the English language. From his astonishing epic Paradise Lost, with its magnificent blank verse and mesmerizing characters, to the tragic brilliance of Samson Agonistes, Milton engaged the political and religious issues of his troubled times with subtlety and sophistication. His moving elegy “Lycidas,” written after the untimely drowning death of a friend, has been hailed as the greatest lyric poem in English. The classic shorter works, from the pastoral poems “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” to the enchanting masque Comus, to the intensely personal sonnets, share the grandeur and vitality of his epics; all serve as continual reminders of the heights the human imagination can achieve. With an introduction by Gordon Campbell.