Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO HIS FATHER, by JOHN MILTON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Oh that pieria's spring would through my breast Last Line: Improve the fathers of a distant age! Subject(s): Fathers | ||||||||
OH that Pieria's spring would through my breast Pour its inspiring influence, and rush No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood! That, for my venerable father's sake All meaner themes renounced, my muse, on wings Of duty borne, might reach a loftier strain. For thee, my father! howsoe'er it please, She frames this slender work; nor know I aught That may thy gifts more suitably requite; Though to requite them suitably would ask Returns much nobler, and surpassing far The meagre stores of verbal gratitude: But, such as I possess, I send thee all. This page presents thee in their full amount With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought, Nought, save the riches that from airy dream In secret grottoes, and in laurel bowers, I have, by golden Clio's gift, acquired. Verse is a work divine; despise not thou Verse therefore, which evinces (nothing more) Man's heavenly source, and which, retaining still Some scintillations of Promethean fire, Bespeaks him animated from above. The gods love verse; the infernal powers themselves Confess the influence of verse, which stirs The lowest deep, and binds in triple chains Of adamant both Pluto and the Shades. In verse the Delphic priestess, and the pale Tremulous Sibyl, make the future known; And he who sacrifices, on the shrine Hangs verse, both when he smites the threatening bull, And when he spreads his reeking entrails wide To scrutinize the fates enveloped there. We too,ourselves, what time we seek again Our native skies, and one eternal now Shall be the only measure of our being, Crowned all with gold, and chanting to the lyre Harmonious verse, shall range the courts above, And make the starry firmament resound. And, even now, the fiery spirit pure That wheels yon circling orbs, directs, himself, Their mazy dance with melody of verse Unutterable, immortal, hearing which Huge Ophiuchus holds his hiss suppressed; Orion, softened, drops his ardent blade; And Atlas stands unconscious of his load. Verse graced of old the feasts of kings, ere yet Luxurious dainties, destined to the gulf Immense of gluttony, were known, and ere Lyaeus deluged yet the temperate board. Then sat the bard a customary guest To share the banquet, and, his length of locks With beechen honours bound, proposed in verse The characters of hero es and their deeds To imitation; sang of Chaos old, Of Nature's birth, of gods that crept in search Of acorns fallen, and of the thunder-bolt Not yet produced from AEtna's fiery cave. And what avails, at last, tune without voice, Devoid of matter? Such may suit perhaps The rural dance, but such was ne'er the song Of Orpheus, whom the streams stood still to hear, And the oaks followed. Not by chords alone Well touched, but by resistless accents more, To sympathetic tears the ghosts themselves He moved: these praises to his verse he owes. Nor thou persist, I pray thee, still to slight The sacred Nine, and to imagine vain And useless, powers, by whom inspired, thyself Art skilful to associate verse with airs Harmonious, and to give the human voice A thousand modulations, heir by right Indisputable of Arion's fame. Now say, what wonder is it if a son Of thine delight in verse, if, so conjoined In close affinity, we sympathise In social arts, and kindred studies sweet? Such distribution of himself to us Was Phoebus' choice; thou hast thy gift, and I Mine also, and between us we receive, Father and son, the whole inspiring god. No! howsoe'er the semblance thou assume Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse, My father! for thou never badest me tread The beaten path, and broad, that leads right on To opulence, nor didst condemn thy son To the insipid clamours of the bar, To laws voluminous, and ill observed; But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill My mind with treasure, led'st me far away From city din to deep retreats, to banks And streams Aonian, and, with free consent, Didst place me happy at Apollo's side. I speak not now, on more important themes Intent, of common benefits, and such As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts, My father! who, when I had opened once The stores of Roman rhetoric, and learned The full-toned language of the eloquent Greeks, Whose lofty music graced the lips of Jove, Thyself didst counsel me to add the flowers That Gallia boasts; those too with which the smooth Italian his degenerate speech adorns, That witnesses his mixture with the Goth; And Palestine's prophetic songs divine. To sum the whole, whate'er the heaven contains, The earth beneath it, and the air between, The rivers and the restless deep, may all prove intellectual gain to me, my wish Concurring with thy will; Science herself, All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head, And offers me the lip, if, dull of heart, I shrink not, and decline her gracious boon. Go now and gather dross, ye sordid minds That covet it; what could my father more? What more could Jove himself, unless he gave His own abode, the hea ven in which he reigns? More eligible gifts than these were not Apollo's to his son, had they been safe As they were insecure, who made the boy The world's vice-luminary, bade him rule The radiant chariot of the day, and bind To his young brows his own all-dazzling wreath? I therefore, although last and least, my place Among the learned in the laurel grove Will hold, and where the conqueror's ivy twines, Henceforth exempt from the unlettered throng Profane, nor even to be seen by such. Away, then, sleepless Care; Complaint, away; And, Envy, with thy "jealous leer malign!" Nor let the monster Calumny shoot forth Her venomed tongue at me. Detested foes! Ye all are impotent against my peace, For I am privileged, and bear my breast Safe, and too high for your viperean wound. But thou, my father! since to render thanks Equivalent, and to requite by deeds Thy liberality, exceeds my power, Suffice it that I thus record thy gifts, And bear them treasured in a grateful mind! Ye too, the favourite pastime of my youth, My voluntary numbers, if ye dare To hope longevity, and to survive Your master's funeral, not soon absorbed In the oblivious Lethaean gulf, Shall to futurity perhaps convey This theme, and by these praises of my sire Improve the fathers of a distant age! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PLAYING DEAD by ANDREW HUDGINS PRAYER BEFORE BED by ANDREW HUDGINS THE FUNERAL SERMON by ANDREW HUDGINS ELEGY FOR MY FATHER, WHO IS NOT DEAD by ANDREW HUDGINS EUROPE AND AMERICA by DAVID IGNATOW EUROPE AND AMERICA by DAVID IGNATOW ESTATE SALE by WAYNE KOESTENBAUM |
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