Autobiography of John Milton

Hail, heav'nly Poet! taught in sorrow's school
To sing of Paradise both lost and won;
No earthly Paradise thyself e'er found,
Save that within thy own pure breast serene;
Who does not love thy classic page to scan,
Thy stately prose and justly-cadenc'd song?
Long have I lov'd thee-long have ponder'd o'er
Thy charmèd words, and sought to read thy soul,
To picture on my brain thy image fair.
Not thy sweet manly form and lofty brow
So often limn'd; but thy deep hidden life,
Thy very self, itself, I fain would know.
But all are silent-history's busy page
Scarce deigns to mention thy immortal name,
Immortal now, though then by all unprais'd.
And still thou findest 'few, though fit audience.'
Among those 'few' may I be counted 'fit'!
To thy own page I turn; and converse sweet
There hold with thee, there read thy chequer'd life,
All that thou wert; for books are living things,

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'The precious life-blood of a master-spirit,' 1 Treasur'd and stor'd for life beyond this life. And thy own works alone thy true self show, Thy secret thoughts, intents, and ardent hopes To right a nation's wrongs, and teach the world A better lore than that thyself wert taught. There best thy image rises to my view

In all its lineaments majestical;

With faults indeed, for else thou wert not man,
But these outweigh'd by virtues manifold,
Heroic, high, which make thy life, thy books,
Things which we contemplate with wond'ring love.
Let others, reading here thy self-told tale,
Love thy bright genius-I will love the MAN.

J. J. G. G.

1 Milton's Areopagitica.