Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/317

 BOOK FOURTH

��275

��(And what he brings what needs he else- where seek V)

Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep-versed in books and shallow in him- self,

Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, 329

As children gathering pebbles on the shore. Or, if I would delight my private hours With music or with poem, where so soon As in our native language can I find That solace ? All our Law and Story

strewed With hymns, our Psalms with artful terms

inscribed,

Our Hebrew songs and harps, in Babylon That pleased so well our victor's ear, de- clare

That rather Greece from us these arts de- rived

111 imitated while they loudest sing The vices of their deities, and their own, In fable, hymn, or song, so personating 341 Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past

shame.

Remove their swelling epithetes, thick-laid As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest, Thin-sown with aught of profit or delight, Will far be found unworthy to compare With Sion's songs, to all true tastes excel- ling* Where God is praised aright and godlike

men,

The Holiest of Holies and his Saints (Such are from God inspired, not such from thee); 350

Unless where moral virtue is expressed By light of Nature, not in all quite lost. Their orators thou then extoll'st as those The top of eloquence statists indeed, And lovers of their country, as may seem; But herein to our Prophets far beneath, As men divinely taught, and better teach- ing

The solid rules of civil government, In their majestic, unaffected style, 359

Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. In them is plainest taught, and easiest

learnt, What makes a nation happy, and keeps it

so,

What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat; These only, with our Law, best form a king."

��So spake the Son of God ; but Satan, now Quite at a loss (for all his darts were

spent),

Thus to our Saviour, with stern brow, re- plied : " Since neither wealth nor honour, arms

nor arts, Kingdom nor empire, pleases thee, nor

aught

By me proposed in life contemplative 370 Or active, tended on by glory or fame, What dost thou in this world ? The Wil- derness For thee is fittest place: I found thee

there,

And thither will return thee. Yet remem- ber What I foretell thee; soon thou shalt have

cause

To wish thou never hadst rejected, thus Nicely or cautiously, my offered aid, Which would have set thee in short time

with ease On David's throne, or throne of all the

world,

Now at full age, fulness of time, thy sea- son, 3 8o When prophecies of thee are best fulfilled. Now, contrary if I read aught in heaven, Or heaven write aught of fate by what

the stars

Voluminous, or single characters In their conjunction met, give me to spell, Sorrows and labours, opposition, hate, Attends thee; scorns, reproaches, injuries, Violence and stripes, and, lastly, cruel

death. A kingdom they portend thee, but what

kingdom,

Real or allegoric, I discern not; 390

Nor when : eternal sure as without end, Without beginning; for no date prefixed Directs me in the starry rubric set."

So saying, he took (for still he knew his

power

Not yet expired), and to the Wilderness Brought back, the Son of God, and left

him there,

Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose, As daylight sunk, and brought in louring

Night,

Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both, Privation mere of light and absent day. 400 Our Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind

�� �