Remembering Milton

Posted 1 March, 2008 in Poetry |

Several centuries before Timothy Findley crafted his revisionist tale of the biblical flood in Not Wanted on the Voyage, John Milton reconstituted another story from the Book of Genesis — that of Adam and Eve and mankind’s fall from God’s grace — into his epic poem Paradise Lost. To a certain extent Milton has fallen out of favour in today’s secular society, largely because of his ardently devout nature; when, at the beginning of Paradise Lost, he renders the invocation, “Sing Heav’nly Muse,” there is scant indication that this is to be taken metaphorically.

Nevertheless, the glory of Milton’s writing has not diminished one iota in the years since his death, as Claire Tomalin eloquently reminds us in her appreciation of the poet in the Guardian:

Milton makes you think, provokes you into arguments about power, good and evil, about responsibility, innocence and the right to knowledge. He shows God forbidding this right, but we remember that Milton had himself defended it furiously in his essay on the freedom of the press, “Areopagitica”. The clash between Milton the Renaissance humanist and Milton the faithful servant of God makes things interesting.

Indeed, Milton’s “Areopagitica,” written in 1644, sounds as relevant today as it ever did, particularly when viewed through the prism of the Harper Conservatives’ draconian Bill C-10, which would deny tax credits to film and television productions that the government deems “obscene.” Milton was speaking of the written word, but his sentiments could as easily be applied to any artistic medium: “[A]s good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.”

While I agree with Tomalin’s assessment that Paradise Lost is “as thrilling as a novel,” my sentimental favourite among Milton’s poems has always been “Lycidas,” written for a friend “unfortunately drown’d” in 1637. It contains perhaps the most stirring valediction to a departed soul I’ve yet read:

Weep no more, woeful Shepherds weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the wat’ry floor,
So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled Ore,
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas, sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walks the waves,
Where other groves, and other streams along,
With Nectar pure his oozy Locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial Song,
In the blest Kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet Societies
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now Lycidas, the Shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.

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