- Time, though in Eternity, applied
- To motion, measures all things durable
- By present, past, and future.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
- All who have their reward on Earth, the fruits
- Of painful superstition and blind zeal,
- Naught seeking but the praise of men, here find
- Fit retribution, empty as their deeds.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
For God will deign to visit oft the dwellings of just men -- delighted, and with frequent intercourse -- thither will send his winged messengers on errants of supernal grace.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Six wings he wore, to shade his lineaments divine; the pair that clad each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast with regal ornament; the middle pair girt like a starry zone his waist, and round skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold, and colours dipp'd in heaven; the third his feet shadow'd from either heel with feather'd mail, sky-tinctur'd grain.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
For smiles from reason flow
To brute deny'd, and are of love the food.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth -- unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
- Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
- As he met her once a-Maying.
- Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
- Jest, and youthful Jollity,
- Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
- Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
- Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
- And love to live in dimple sleek;
- Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
- And Laughter holding both his sides.
For liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands.
JOHN MILTON, The History of Britain
- Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven firstborn!
- Or of th' eternal co-eternal beam,
- May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light
- And never but in unapproached light
- Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
- Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
The planets in their station listening stood.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named not good.
JOHN MILTON, Tetrachordon
- But when Lust
- By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
- But most by lewd and lavish arts of sin,
- Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
- The soul grows clotted by contagion,
- Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose
- The divine property of her first being.
JOHN MILTON, "Comus", Poems Upon Several Occasions
Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
When the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there be [those] who envy and oppose, if it come not first in at their casements.
JOHN MILTON, "Areopagitica", The Prose Works of John Milton
How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to other's note,
Singing their great Creator?
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
His thoughts were low;
To vice industrious; but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Grieved at his heart, when looking down he saw
The whole earth filled with violence; and all flesh
Corrupting each their way.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
JOHN MILTON, Comus
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to
the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.
JOHN MILTON, Il Penseroso
A tyrant is but like a king upon a stage, a man in a vizor, and acting the part of a king in a play: he is not really a king.
JOHN MILTON, "A Defence of the People of England, in Answer to Salmasius's Defence of the King", The Prose Works of John Milton
And made the stars,
And set them in the firmament of heav'n,
T' illuminate the earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the night.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
What hath night to do with sleep?
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
A smile that glow'd
Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
JOHN MILTON, Comus
A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial
To my proportion'd strength.
JOHN MILTON, Comus
Rich and various gems inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep.
JOHN MILTON, Comus
Danger will wink on opportunity.
JOHN MILTON, Comus
I shall temper so
Justice with mercy.
JOHN MILTON, Comus
With thy long levell'd rule of streaming light.
- He that has light within his own clear breast
- May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day;
- But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
- Benighted walks under the mid-day sun.
The great luminary
Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,
That from his lordly eye keep distance due,
Dispenses light from far.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
For I no sooner in my heart divin'd,
My heart, which by a secret harmony
Still moves with thine, joined in connection sweet.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings what need he elsewhere seek?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep versed in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge,
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Regained
Say, heavenly pow'rs, where shall we find such love?
Which of ye will be mortal to redeem
Man's mortal crime, and just th' unjust to save.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
When the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour
Calls us to penance.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
So on he fares, and to the border comes,
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will
Would not admit.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds,
That singing up to heaven-gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
But O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave.
JOHN MILTON, Samson Agonistes
Nor jealousy
Was understood, the injur'd lover's hell.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
By merit raised
To that bad eminence.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
For never can true reconcilement grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
A grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharg'd.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Or fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth
Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Lost
Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
JOHN MILTON, Areopagitica
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