Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/401

 POEMS IN VARIOUS METRES

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��complishments. To this had been added the stimulus of personal advice and encouragement in the prosecution of those large plans of self- improvement which Milton early laid out for himself. It was natural for the father to ex- pect, therefore, that his son would now put this elaborate education to some practical use in adopting one of the professions. When Milton rejected the ministry, and settled down at Horton with no more definite programme than to make a poet of himself, the good scrive- ner, in spite of his own liberal tastes, may well have been puzzled, or even moved to remon-

NUNC mea Pierios cupiain per pectora

fontes

Irriguas torquere vias, totumque per ora Volvere laxatum gemino de vertice rivum; Ut, tenues oblita sonos, audacibus alls Surgat in officium venerandi Musa parentis. Hoc utcunqne tibi gratum, pater optiine,

carmen

Exiguum meditatur opus; uec novimus ipsi Aptius a iiobis quse possint munera donis Respondere tuis, quamvis uec maxima pos- sint 9 Respondere tuis, nedum ut par gratia donis Esse queat vacuis qua? redditur arida

verbis. Sed tamen hsec nostros ostendit pagina

census, Et quod habemus opum charta numeravi-

mus istS, Quse mihi sunt nullse, nisi quas dedit aurea

Clio,

Quas mihi semoto somni peperere sub antro, Et nemoris laureta sacri, Parnassides um- bra.

Nee tu, vatis opus, divinum despice car- men,

Quo nihil ffithereos ortus et semina cseli, Nil magis humanam comniendat origiue mentem, 19

Sancta Promethese retinens vestigia flammse. Carmen amant Superi, tremebundaque Tar-

tara carmen

Ima ciere valet, divosque ligare profundos, Et triplici duros Manes adamante coercet. Carmine sepositi retegunt arcana futuri Phcebades, et tremulae pallentes ora Sibylla?; Carmina sacrificus sollennes pangit ad aras, Aurea seu sternit motanteni cornua taurum, Seu cum fata sagax fumantibus abdita

fibris

Consulit, et tepidis Parcam scrutatur in extis.

��strate. This poem is at once an earnest avowal of indebtedness and an eloquent plea for the right to continue in the service of song. A very persuasive turn is given to the plea by the poet's declaration that the whole course of his father's conduct towards him has tended to develop in him the longing for high ideal aims ; and that, moreover, his father's love of musical composition is only another form of the Muse's service. Milton's intellectual pride and exult- ant sense of power comes out strikingly as the poem draws toward its close.

��Now may the Pierian fountains pour their waters through my heart, and the stream that falls from the twin peaks of Parnassus roll all its flood upon my lips. My Muse will put by her trivial strain, and rise on audacious wiugs to praise the par- ent whom I venerate. I know not how welcome, best of fathers, this song will be, this sLnder work that I meditate for you; but I know no better gift with which to repay your gifts. Gifts the greatest would be too little to repay you, much less can the mere arid return of words hope to equal your kindness. But still this page can set forth my account; on this sheet I have summed up my wealth, which is nothing except what golden Clio gave me, and what dreams have brought me in sequestered caverns, and the laurels of the sacred wood, and the shady places of Parnassus.

Do not, my father, hold in disesteem the work of the bard, divine Song, than which nothing more clearly shows man's ethereal beginning, and heavenly seed, and the high origin of his mind. For in song linger holy traces of that fire which Prometheus stole. The gods love song. It has strength to compel the appalling deeps of Tartarus, to bind the lower gods, and chain the cruel shades with triple adamant. In song Apol- lo's priestesses reveal the secrets of the distant future, and with song the pale mouths of the Sibyls tremble. The sacri- ficer makes verse before the solemn altars, when he strikes the tossing head of the bull between its gilded horns, when he con- sults the destinies hidden in the fuming flesh, and reads fate from the entrails still

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