Milton_-_Paradise_Regained.pdf

Paradise Regained

Milton, John

Published: 1667

Type(s): Poetry

Source: Wikisource

About Milton:

John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English

poet, prose polemicist, and civil servant for the English Commonwealth.

Most famed for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton is celebrated as well

for his eloquent treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. Long con-

sidered the supreme English poet, Milton experienced a dip in popular-

ity after attacks by T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis in the mid 20th century; but

with multiple societies and scholarly journals devoted to his study,

Milton’s reputation remains as strong as ever in the 21st century.

Very soon after his death – and continuing to the present day – Milton

became the subject of partisan biographies, confirming T.S. Eliot’s belief

that “of no other poet is it so difficult to consider the poetry simply as

poetry, without our theological and political dispositions…making un-

lawful entry.” Milton’s radical, republican politics and heretical religious

views, coupled with the perceived artificiality of his complicated Latin-

ate verse, alienated Eliot and other readers; yet by dint of the overriding

influence of his poetry and personality on subsequent genera-

tions—particularly the Romantic movement—the man whom Samuel

Johnson disparaged as “an acrimonious and surly republican” must be

counted one of the most significant writers and thinkers of all time.

Source: Wikipedia

Also available on Feedbooks for Milton:

• Paradise Lost (1667)

Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks.

http://www.feedbooks.com

Strictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes.

Part 1

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.

Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite

Into the desert, his victorious field

Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence

By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,

As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,

And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,

With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds

Above heroic, though in secret done,

And unrecorded left through many an age:

Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.

Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice

More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried

Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand

To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked

With awe the regions round, and with them came

From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed

To the flood Jordan—came as then obscure,

Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon

Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore

As to his worthier, and would have resigned

To him his heavenly office. Nor was long

His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized

Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove

The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice

From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.

That heard the Adversary, who, roving still

About the world, at that assembly famed

Would not be last, and, with the voice divine

Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom

Such high attest was given a while surveyed

With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,

Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air

To council summons all his mighty Peers,

Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,

A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,

With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake: —

"O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World

(For much more willingly I mention Air,

This our old conquest, than remember Hell,

Our hated habitation), well ye know

How many ages, as the years of men,

This Universe we have possessed, and ruled

In manner at our will the affairs of Earth,

Since Adam and his facile consort Eve

Lost Paradise, deceived by me, though since

With dread attending when that fatal wound

Shall be inflicted by the seed of Eve

Upon my head. Long the decrees of Heaven

Delay, for longest time to Him is short;

And now, too soon for us, the circling hours

This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we

Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: