XIII.

Such musick (as 'tis said)Before was never madeBut when of old the sons of Morning sung,31While the Creator greatHis constellation set,And the well-ballanc't world on hinges32hung,And cast the dark foundations deep,And bid the weltring33waves their oozy channel keep.

Ring out, ye crystall sphears;34Once bless our humane ears(If ye have power to touch our senses so),And let your silver chimeMove in melodious time,And let the base of Heav'ns deep organ blow,And with your ninefold harmonyMake up full consort35to th' angelike symphony.

For, if such holy songEnwrap our fancy long,Time will run back and fetch the age of Gold;36And speckl'd VanityWill sicken soon and die,And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould;37And Hell itself will pass away,And leave her38dolorous mansions to the peering day.

Yea, Truth and Justice thenWill down return to men,Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,Mercy will set between,Thron'd in celestiall sheen,With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing;And Heav'n, as at som festivall,Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.39

But wisest Fate sayes no;This must not yet be so;The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy,That on the bitter cross40Must redeem our loss,So both himself and us to glorifie;Yet first to those ychain'd41in sleepThe wakefull trump42of doom must thunder through the deep.

With such a horrid clangAs on Mount Sinai rang,43While the red fire and smould'ring clouds out brake;The aged Earth, agast,With terrour of that blast,Shall from the surface to the center shake;When at the worlds last session44The dreadfull Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

And then at last our blissFull and perfect is,But now begins; for from this happy day,Th' old Dragon45under ground,In straiter limits bound,Not half so far casts his usurped sway;And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,Swindges46the scaly horrour of his foulded tail.

The oracles are dumm;47No voice or hideous hummRuns through the arched roof in words deceiving.Apollo from his shrineCan no more divine,With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos48leaving.No nightly trance, or breathed spell,Inspires the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely mountains o'erAnd the resounding shoreA voice of weeping49heard and loud lament;From haunted spring and daleEdged with poplar paleThe parting50Genius is with sighing sent;With floure-inwov'n tresses tornThe nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth,And on the holy hearth51The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaintIn urns and altars round,A drear and dying soundAffrights the Flamins52at their service quaintAnd the chill marble seems to sweat,While each peculiar power forgoes53his wonted seat.

Peor and Baälim54Forsake their temples dim,With that twise batter'd god55of Palestine;And mooned Ashtaroth,Heav'ns queen and mother both,Now sits not girt with tapers holy shine;The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn;56

And sullen Moloch, fled,Hath left in shadows dred57His burning idol all of blackest hue;In vain with cymbals ringThey call the grisly58KingIn dismall dance about the furnace blue;The brutish59gods of Nile as fast,Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis last.

Nor is Osiris seenIn Memphian grove or greenTrampling the unshowr'd grass60with lowings loud,Nor can he be at restWithin his sacred chest;Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud;In vain with timbrel'd anthems darkThe sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

He feels from Judas landThe dredded Infants hand;The rayes of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;61Nor 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 controul the damned crew.

So, when the Sun in bed,62Curtain'd with cloudy redPillows his chin upon an orient wave,The flocking shadows paleTroop to th' infernal jail;Each fetter'd ghost slips to his severall grave;And the yellow-skirted FayesFly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.

But see the Virgin blestHath laid her Babe to rest;Time is our tedious song should here have ending;Heav'ns youngest teemed63starHath fixt her polish'd car,Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;And all about the courtly stableBright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.64

This poem was begun by Milton on Christmas day, 1629. He had then just completed his twenty-first year, and was still an undergraduate at Christ's College, Cambridge. From certain fragments and other evidence, it is believed that he contemplated writing a series of poems on great Christian events in a similar way. This is the first poem of importance which he wrote. Hallam speaks of it as perhaps the finest lyric of its kind in the English language. "A grandeur, a simplicity, a breadth of manner, an imagination at once elevated and restrained by the subject, reign throughout it. If Pindar is a model of lyric poetry, it would be hard to name any other ode so truly Pindaric; but more has naturally been derived from the Scriptures."

1.our deadly forfeit should release.Should remit the penalty of death pronounced against us. Shakespeare has a similar use of the word "forfeit."

"Thy slanders I forgive, and therewithalRemit thy other forfeits."

—Measure for Measure, Act v, sc. 1.

2.wont.The past tense of the A.-S. verbwunian, to persist, to continue, to be accustomed. Now used only in connection with some form of the auxiliary verbbe.

3.Explain the meaning of each word in this line, and of the whole line. The next two stanzas comprise an invocation to the Muse of Poetry. See note 1, page153.

4.Wisards.Wizards. Wise men. The word was originally used in this sense, and not with the depreciatory meaning of "magician," as at present. Spenser says:

"Therefore the antique wizards well inventedThat Venus of the fomy sea was bred,"

meaning by "antique wizards" ancient philosophers.

5.prevent.Go before; the original meaning of the word, from Lat.præ, before, andvenio, to go or come.

"I prevented the dawning of the morning."—Psalmcxix. 147.

"I will have nothing to hinder me in the morning, for I will prevent the sun rising."—Izaak Walton,Compleat Angler.

6.angel quire."And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God."—Lukeii, 13.

7.paramour.See note 9, page80.

8.maiden.Pure, innocent, unpolluted. Compare

"When I am dead, strew me o'erWith maiden flowers."

—Shakespeare,Henry VIII, Act iv, sc. 2.

9.turning sphear.The Ptolemaic system of astronomy taught that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that all the heavenly bodies revolved about it, being fixed in a complicated framework, or series of hollow crystalline spheres moving one within the other. The "turning sphear" is here this entire system of revolving spheres. See note34, below.

10.harbinger.One who provides a resting-place for a superior person. It was the duty of the king's harbinger, when the court removed from one place to another, to provide lodgings for the king's retinue. Derived fromharbor,harborage. The word "harbor" is from A.-S.here, army, andbeorg, a refuge. Others derive the word fromhar, a message, andbringer—hence, one who brings a message, a herald.

Parkes'sTopography of Hampstead, 1818, contains the following:

"The office of harbinger still exists in the Royal Household, the nominal duty of the officer being to ride one stage onward before the king on his progress, to provide lodging and provision for the court."

The last knight-harbinger was Sir Henry Rycroft (appointed in 1816, died October, 1846, aged eighty). The office became extinct at his death.

11.turtle.Commonlyturtle-dove. For history of the word as now applied to the tortoise, see Worcester's Dictionary.

12.universall peace.About the time of the birth of Christ therewas peace throughout the Roman Empire, and the temple of Janus was shut.

13.hooked chariot.The war-chariot armed with scythes, a Celtic invention adopted by the Romans.

14.awfull eye.We would say, "awe-filled eyes."

sovran.Old Frenchsouverain. Some derive it from Lat.supra, above, andregno, to reign.

15.whist.Hushed. This word, now used as a sort of interjection commanding silence, seems to have had in earlier English more of a verbal meaning, as Spenser in "The Faerie Queene," VII, vii, 59:

"So was the Titaness put downe and whist."

It also meantto keep silent, as in Surrey's "Virgil":

"They whisted all, with fixed face intent."

A game of cards in which the players are supposed to keep silent is called whist.

birds of calm.Halcyons. See note 1, page78.

16.influence.From Lat.in, into, andfluo, to flow. This word, until a comparatively modern date, was always used with respect to the supposed mysterious rays or aspects flowing from the stars to the earth, and thus having a strange power over the fortunes of men. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?"—Jobxxviii. 31.

"Happy constellations on that hourShed their selectest influences."

—Paradise Lost, VIII, 512.

17.For.Notwithstanding.

18.Lucifer.The morning star. The idea of Lucifer appearing to warn the stars of the approach of the sun is a happy figure. See note 7, page80.

19.axle-tree.Axis.Treein O. E. is used to signify beam. We still havesingle-tree,double-tree,whiffle-tree, etc. Compare "Comus," 95:

"The gilded car of dayHis glowing axle doth allay."

20.lawn.Used in its original sense of a pasture, or open, grassy space. Formerlylaund. Similarly we havelane, an open passage between houses or fields.

21.Or ere.Oris here used in its old sense, meaningbefore, from A.-S.ær.Ere= e'er, ever. Compare Ecclesiastes xii. 6: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed." Also "King Lear," Act ii, sc. 4:

"But this heartShall break into a hundred thousand flawsOr ere I'll weep."

22.Pan.See note, page72. The application of the namePanto Christ is evidently derived from Spenser. See "Shepheards Calendar," July:

"And such, I ween, the brethren wereThat came from Canaän,The brethren Twelve, that kept yfereThe flocks of mightie Pan."

In the Glosse to the Calendar for May it is said that "Great Pan is Christ, the very God of all shepheards, which calleth himselfe the great and good shepheard. The name is most rightly (methinks) applied to him; for Pan signifieth all, or omnipotent, which is only the Lord Iesus. And by that name (as I remember) he is called of Eusebius in his fifth booke,De Preparat. Evange."

23.silly.From A.-S.saelig, blessed, happy. Spenser uses the word in the sense of innocent, as in "Faerie Queene," III, viii, 27:

"The silly virgin strove him to withstand."

Chaucer, in the "Reves Tale," uses it in the more modern sense of simple, or foolish:

"These sely clerkes han ful fast yronne."

But in the "Legend of Good Women" it has another meaning:

"O sely woman, full of innocence."

The meaning of this word has completely changed.

24.strook.Caused to sound as on a stringed instrument. Compare Dryden in "Alexander's Feast":

"Now strike the golden lyre again."

25.noise.A company of musicians under a leader. Used in this sense by both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

26.close.Cadence. See Dryden, "Fables":

"At everycloseshe made, th' attending throngReplied, and bore the burden of the song."

27.hollow round.The sphere in which the moon has its motion. See notes9and34.

Cynthia.The moon. In the ancient mythology applied to Artemis, from Mount Cynthus in the island of Delos, her birthplace.

28.its.In all his poetry, Milton uses this word only three times. The other examples are in "Paradise Lost," I, 254, and IV, 814. This possessive form of the pronoun it was never used until the time of Shakespeare, who employs it five times in "A Winter's Tale," and once in "Measure for Measure"; it does not occur anywhere in the authorized version of the Bible.

29.Why are the Cherubim "helmed," while the Seraphim are "sworded"? Addison says, "Some of the rabbins tell us that the cherubims are a set of angels who know most, and the seraphims a set of angels who love most." Observe that the plural of cherub or of seraph may be formed in three ways: viz. cherubs, cherubim, cherubims; seraphs, seraphim, seraphims.

30.unexpressive.Inexpressible. See Shakespeare, "As You Like It":

"The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she."

Also Milton, "Lycidas," 176:

"And hears the unexpressive nuptiall song."

31.the sons of Morning sung.See Job xxxviii. 4-7, the oldest reference to the "music of the spheres." See note34, below.

32.hinges.Literally, a hinge is anything for hanging something upon. From A.-S.hangian.

33.weltring.Rolling, wallowing. See "Lycidas," 13.

34.Ring out.An allusion to the music of the spheres. See note27, above. The theory of Pythagoras was that the distances between the heavenly bodies were determined by the laws of musical concord. "These orbs in their motion could not but produce a certain sound or note, depending upon their distances and velocities; and as these were regulated by harmonic laws, they necessarily formed as a whole a complete musical scale." "In the whorl of the distaff of necessity there are eight concentric whorls. These whorls represent respectively the sun and moon, the five planets, and the fixed stars. On each whorl sits a siren singing. Their eight tones make one exquisite harmony." Milton added a ninth whorl,—"that swift nocturnal and diurnal rhomb,"—and then spoke of the "ninefold harmony," as just below. This was a favorite idea with the poets.

"Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,Listening the lordly music flowing fromThe illimitable years."

—Tennyson,Ode to Memory.

"The music of the spheres! list, my Mariana!"

—Shakespeare,Pericles, Act v, sc. 1.

"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'stBut in his motion like an angel singsStill quiring to the young-eyed cherubims."

—Shakespeare,Merchant of Venice, Act v, sc. 1.

"If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,How would he wish that Heaven had left him stillThe whispering zephyr and the purling rill!"

—Pope,Essay on Man, I.

"Her voice, the music of the spheres,So loud, it deafens mortals' ears,As wise philosophers have thought,And that's the cause we hear it not."

—Butler's Hudibras, II, i, 617.

See, also, Montaigne,Essays, I, xxii; Sir Thomas Browne'sReligio Medici, II, 9; Plato'sRepublic, VI; Dryden's "Ode to Mrs. Anne Killigrew," etc.

35.consort.Accompaniment. This word, so written until Milton's time, has now given place toconcert, whenever used as here.

36.age of Gold.The fabled primeval age of universal happiness.

"A blisful lyfe, a peseable, and so swete,Ledde the peplis in the former age."—Chaucer.

37.mould.Matter, substance. The word is used in the old Romances to denote the earth itself. Milton elsewhere says:

"Can any mortal mixture of earth's mouldBreathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?"

38.her.Observe what has already been said (note28, above) about the pronounits.Hell, in the Anglo-Saxon language, is feminine. But, just above, observe the expressionit self. See, in thelast lineof stanza xv, the pronounherwithheavenas its antecedent.Heofon, in the Anglo-Saxon, is also feminine.

39.This stanza is a fine example of word-painting. What idea is conveyed to your mind by the expressions, "orb'd in a rainbow," "like glories wearing," "thron'd in celestiall sheen," "the tissued clouds down stearing," etc.? What kind of glories will Mercy wear? Where will she sit? How will she be enthroned? What areradiantfeet? Why are Mercy's feet radiant? Does she steer the tissued clouds "with radiant feet," or does she steer herself down the tissued clouds? Why will the opening of Heaven's high palace wall be "as at some festivall"?

40.bitter cross.Compare Shakespeare, "1 Henry IV," Act i, sc. 1, 27:

"Those blessed feetWhich fourteen hundred years ago were nail'dFor our advantage, on the bitter cross."

41.ychain'd.Theyis a corruption of the prefixge, anciently used in connection with the past participle, and still retained in many German words. Often used by Chaucer and Spenser, as in yblessed, yburied, ybrent, yfonden, ygeten, yclad, yfraught, etc.

42.trump."For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."—1 Thessaloniansiv. 16.

wakefull.Awakening.

43.rang.See Exodus xix.

44.session.Assize. Both words were originally from the same root, Lat.sedeo,sessum.

spread.Prepare, make ready. A similar use of the word survives in the idiom "to spread the table."

45.Dragon.See Revelation xii. 9.

46.Swindges.Swings about violently. This is the only case in which Milton uses this word. It is used several times by Shakespeare in the sense ofto whip,to scourge.

47.oracles are dumm.Keightly says: "This was a frequent assertion of the Fathers, who ascribed to the coming of Christ what was the effect of time. They regarded the ancient oracles as having been the inspiration of the devil."

Spenser, quoting the story which Plutarch relates in "his Booke of the ceasing of miracles," says, "For at that time, as hee sayth, all Oracles surceased, and enchaunted spirites that were woont to delude the people thenceforth held their peace."—Glosse to Shepheards Calendar, May.

48.Delphos.The mediæval form of the wordDelphi. The temple where was the chief oracle of Apollo was at Delphi, built at the foot of a precipitous cliff two thousand feet high. This oracle was suppressed by the Emperor Theodosius.

49.weeping.Compare Matthew ii. 19, and Jeremiah xxxi. 15.

Spenser, in the sameGlosse, quoted from above, says, "About the same time that our Lorde suffered his most bitter passion for the redemption of man, certaine persons sailing from Italie to Cyprus and passing by certaine iles called Paxæ, heard a voice calling aloud Thamus, Thamus, (now Thamus was the name of an Egyptian which was pylote of the ship), who, giving ear to the crie, was bidden, when he came to Palodes to tell that great Pan was dead: which hee doubting to doe, yet for that when hee came to Palodes, there suddenly was such a calme of winde that the ship stoode still in the sea unmooved, he was forced to crie aloude that Pan was dead: wherewithall there was heard such piteous outcries, and dreadfull shriking as hath not beene the like."

50.parting.Departing. Frequently used in Old English.

Genius.Spirit. See "Lycidas," 182:

"Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore."

51.consecrated earth—holy hearth.Referring to the places specially haunted by the Lars and Lemures. The Lemures were the spirits of the dead, and were said to wander about at night, frightening the living. The Lares were the household gods, sometimes referred to as the spiritsof good men. The former frequented the graveyards; the latter, the hearths.

52.Flamins.Priests.

53.forgoes.Goes from, gives up, abandons.

54.Peor and Baälim.Compare the proper names which occur in this and the following stanzas with those in "Paradise Lost," I, 316-352.

Peor.The name of a mountain of Palestine is here used as one of the titles of Baal, who was worshipped there.

Baälim.Plural of Baal, meaning that god in his various modifications.

Ashtaroth.The Syrian goddess Astarte. But her worship was identified rather with the planet Venus than with the moon.

Hammon.A Libyan deity, represented as a ram or as a man with ram's horns.

55.twise batter'd god.Dagon. See 1 Samuel v.

56.mourn.In Phœnicia, in the ancient city of Byblos, a festival of two days was held every year in honor of Adonis, or Thammuz, as the Phœnicians called him. The first day was observed as a day of mourning for the death of the god; the second, as a day of rejoicing because of his return to the earth. The principal participants were young women. The prophet Ezekiel alludes to this subject: "Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."—Ezekielviii. 14.

Milton, in "Paradise Lost," says:

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