No More Learning

His
productions till his thirtieth year were nearly all of a classical
caste--"L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," "Comus," "Lycidas. " Returning from
Continental travels in 1639, Milton became enmeshed in politics, and so
continued for twenty years, during which time he wrote much polemical
prose, including his "Areopagitica" (see Vol. XX, p. 257) and his
"Tractate on Education. " After a spell of teaching and pamphleteering,
he served as Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell, and was stricken with
blindness at the age of forty-four. Though poor by loss of office after
the Restoration, he was never in poverty. He died on November 8, 1674.
"Paradise Lost," planned in his youth, was actually begun in 1658,
finished in 1665, and published in 1667. The price arranged was ? 5
down and ? 5 more on each of three editions, of which Milton received
? 10, and his widow ? 8, the rest being unpaid. In English literature
"Paradise Lost" stands alone as an effort of sheer imagination, and its
literary genius is as haunting as its conception is stupendous.




Paradise Regained[AB]


_I.
--The Forty Days_

I, who erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.

Having thus introduced his subject, the poet describes, on Scriptural
lines, the baptism of John, seen by Satan, "when roving still about
the world. " The Fiend then "flies to his place" and "summons all his
mighty peers"--a gloomy consistory--warning them that the time seems
approaching when they "must bide the stroke of that long-threatened
wound," when "the woman's Seed shall bruise the serpent's head. " They
agree that Satan shall return to earth and act as Tempter. In Heaven,
meantime, God tells the assembly of angels, addressing Gabriel, that
He will expose His Son to Satan, in order that the Son may "show him
worthy of His birth divine and high prediction. " And the angelic choir
sings "Victory and triumph to the Son of God. "

So they in Heaven their odes and vigils tuned.
Meanwhile the Son of God . . .
Musing and much revolving in his breast
How best the mighty work he might begin
Of Saviour to mankind, and which way first
Publish his God-like office now mature,
One day forth walked alone, the Spirit leading,
And his deep thoughts, the better to converse
With solitude, till, far from track of men,
Thought following thought, and step by step led on,
He entered now the bordering desert wild.

Christ then, in meditation, tells reminiscently the story of His life.

Full forty days He passed . . .
Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt,
Till those days ended; hungered then at last
Among wild beasts.