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 MILTON'S ODE 
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY
 
 4
 
 ODE ON TH E 
 
 M O RN IN( 
 
 O F CH RIST'S 
 
 NATIVITY' 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 INTRO 
 
 DUCTlw.^ ... 
 
 GLEN 
 
 LEVIN 
 
 SWIGGETl 
 
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 • • • • • 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 • » • • • • 
 
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 INTRODUCTION
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Dona quidem dedimus Christ! natalibus ilia; 
 Ilia sub auroram lux mihi prima tulit. 
 
 — Elegia Stxia. 
 
 n 
 
 CM 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 C3 
 
 
 UGGiNG the hem of the university build- 
 ings by the Cam, stands to-day Christ's 
 College with its beautiful Christ's Piece, 
 haunted by the shades of many of Eng- 
 land's men of glory, great among whom 
 is blind and glorious Milton. Within the 
 hallowed walls of Christ's, John Milton 
 spent seven years. Its "studious cloisters pale" and 
 secluded Walk, honored with the name of England's . 
 greatest epic poet, set the traveler's soul aglow to-day 
 as he lingers, in pleasant retrospection, midst these 
 silent witnesses of the hand that penned one early 
 Christmas morn, anno domini sixteen hundred and 
 twenty-nine, while "all the spangled host" kept 
 "watch in squadrons bright," the magnificent ode 
 that is perhaps, says Hallam, " the finest in the Eng- 
 lish language." 
 
 We may not incline to the judgment of Hallam anent 
 this wonderful effort of a young man of twenty-one. 
 Ward does not include the " Hymn on the Nativity " 
 in his " English Poets," and the biographies of Mil- 
 
 [7] 
 
 44S05i^
 
 VVi\)S \^ 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ton give it but passing notice. The poem may be full 
 of " frigid conceits," as Pattison says; or betray, as 
 Garnett remarks, "discordance with modern senti- 
 ment;" yet, as an earnest of that to come, this beau- 
 tiful poem stands transcendent among the poems of 
 youth in the English language. In it Milton contracts 
 a great debt to his music-loving father. In tuneful 
 rhythm he rises, in his flight, to genuine poetic heights, 
 felling in strokes of splendid diction the dark-starred 
 phantoms that would stay the Coming of the Master, 
 and concluding, as Garnett says, "by an exquisite 
 turn, when suddenly the poet sinks back into his 
 original key, and finally harmonizes his strain by the 
 divine repose of a concluding picture worthy of Cor- 
 reggio." 
 
 The hour and the tide were in conjunction when 
 Milton had this dream which he has told in lines of 
 epic grandeur, luminous with the light that comes to 
 us but once a year and attuned to the music of the 
 Heavenly spheres, of which he was so fond. Milton 
 has essayed with signal success the spirit of "Peace 
 on Earth, Good Will toward Men." The cult of 
 Jove, of Attic beauty, and the adoration of Christ are 
 curiously interblended in this poem, the one poetically 
 enhancing the spiritual beauty of the other. In the 
 
 [8]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 range of English poetry I know no lines of greater 
 consonance with the deep peace and welling joy of 
 Christmas morning; no lines in the realm of Chris- 
 tian literature more fit to hail the Advent of the Star 
 to which all eyes are cast in eager longing at this time, 
 than the several strophes of the poem beginning: — 
 
 But he, her fears to cease, 
 
 Sent down the meek-eyed Peace: 
 
 She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding 
 Down through the turning sphere, 
 His ready harbinger, 
 
 With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, 
 And, waiving wide her myrtle wand. 
 She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. 
 
 To lovers of this beautiful hymn Cambridge, the place 
 of its birth, will ever be dear, although here, as well 
 as in London, time has wrought great changes. In 
 London haunt after haunt of Milton has given way to 
 fire and material progress; and Christ's presents no 
 longer the outward appearance of Milton's day. To 
 him who observes with the inner eye, however, the 
 spirit of John Milton is there to receive him. Despite 
 the legendary mulberry-tree and the modernized 
 Christ's, to the traveler of to-day at Cambridge come 
 back, swift-conjured by some impelling force, lines 
 
 [9]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 from U Allegro, II Penseroso, Lycidas, Comus and the 
 great English Christian epics; and one remembers that 
 it was here that this English boy nourished and fos- 
 tered an earnest purpose to consecrate himself to lofty 
 thought and feeling, so that his life and the fruit 
 thereof might redound to the glory of God and the 
 benefit of mankind. At the age of twenty-three, on 
 the eve of leaving Cambridge, he gives us in lines that 
 suggest Petrarca, Villon and Keats a spiritual inven- 
 tory, in which he speaks, perhaps with too much 
 deprecation, of his poetic work: — 
 
 Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow, 
 
 It shall be still in strictest measure even 
 
 To that same lot, however mean or high. 
 
 Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven, 
 
 All is, if I have grace to use it so, 
 
 As ever in my great Task-Master's eye. 
 
 We can see this English lad sitting in the hushed si- 
 lence of the night by his " lamp at the midnight hour 
 within some high and lonely tower" outwatching the 
 Bear, or musing, in some quiet retreat near his father's 
 home at Horton, on the departing glories of Greece 
 as his Cavalier soul, expanding to the ♦* amplitude of 
 things," resolves to take the step leading to the Puri- 
 
 [lo]
 
 I N T R (J D I' C T I O N 
 
 tan poem that has set the seal of epic genius on the 
 English language. I do not mean to say that this 
 young Englishman was conscious of all this; that he 
 was dimly prescient of some great unknown thing there 
 can be no doubt. At the close of his stay at Horton 
 in sixteen hundred and thirty-seven he wrote to his 
 friend of the days at St. Paul's, Diodati: " You make 
 many inquiries as to what I'm about; — of what I 
 am thinking? Why, with God's help of immortality! 
 Fcrget the word, I only whisper it in your ear! Yes, 
 I am pluming my wings for a flight." Does this 
 refer to that land of indefinable beauty out of which 
 the White Swan came ? I am inclined to question 
 this, despite the Latin lines of sixteen hundred and 
 thirty-eight in which Milton shows how greatly he 
 felt the magic of the Celtic past drawing him in its 
 most kingly representative. It was to be reserved for 
 Tennyson, likewise of Cambridge, to continue the 
 tradition of Malory. 
 
 Fate has many a fling in playful irony with the pup- 
 pets we call men, but it has spared us a fearful shud- 
 der in the thought that this sturdy son of Saxon yeo- 
 manry, attracted by the twilight beauty indwelling in 
 the Celtic king, might never have poeticallv realized 
 in later life that unexampled vision, the preparation for
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 which began at Cambridge, glimpses of which he 
 caught at Horton, which drew him to Italy and 
 prompted a speedy return, and which was to be to 
 him a source of comfort during the days of agitation, 
 of regicide and the Restoration. Paradise Lost, on 
 which Milton worked continuously from sixteen hun- 
 dred and fifty-seven was finished by sixteen hundred 
 and sixty-three. There are lines in it, however, that 
 date from sixteen hundred and forty-two. But back of 
 this, in the sweep of years when the spirit of Christ 
 played like an ambient flame around the soul of the 
 growing boy and maturing man, we must seek for a 
 beginning in time for this poem. The boyish Para- 
 phrases of the Davidic Psalms, written in the shadow 
 of St. Paul's, clustered 'round with memories that 
 suggest the early life of a boy developing midst 
 Christian influences, and the two Cambridge poems, 
 the "Nativity" and the "Passion," full with the 
 love of the Christian God and tender with the tears 
 of Christ, reveal the play of this flame and foreshadow 
 Milton's great epic. The gardens of Horton, so often 
 looked upon as the place where Milton was wont to 
 trod the primrose path of dalliance, have a deep sig- 
 nificance in his life, for it was doubtless here that the 
 Cavalier who could write such exquisite Pagan poetry 
 
 [12]
 
 I N T R O D f C T I O N 
 
 as Lscidas and Comus heard the voice which made 
 him the poet of Puritan England. 
 Milton has felt, as many a poet has and will, the 
 hand of dishonor in his own land. Far from the 
 "Poets' Corner" in stately Westminster Abbey, 
 built by England's religious king, the remains of Eng- 
 land's religious poet were laid to rest in the nave of 
 the little Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, not far 
 from the haunts of his last days. One may read the 
 lettered stone and feel a passing sense of anger at this 
 injustice; at the thought that the ashes of Milton suf- 
 fered profanation in seventeen hundred and ninety, 
 one's anger gives way to sad and silent pity. It is 
 then that one likes to withdraw to Golden Lane, 
 which is near by, and follow, in the revery of rever- 
 ence, Milton's funeral train that must have passed 
 that way. 
 
 England rights a wrong magnanimously, despite the 
 vicissitudes of politics. The case of Cromwell, Mil- 
 ton's stern master, thrice honored and twice dishon- 
 ored by his country, presents itself with striking force 
 to the pilgrim to Milton's shrine, in which church 
 Oliver Cromwell, on the day of his marriage, must 
 have looked out on the world with kindlier eye than 
 in the days when Milton served him. Close to West- 
 
 [n]
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 minster Hall stands Thorneycroft's Cromwell, un- 
 veiled in November, eighteen hundred and nmety- 
 nine, and in the "Poets' Corner" of the Abbey 
 there is, in Rysbrack's monument, a grateful recogni- 
 tion by the English people of the sovereign genius of 
 John Milton, who after two centuries and more of 
 recrimination and misunderstanding has come into his 
 heritage. Of him Mark Pattison, Rector of Lmcoln's, 
 Oxford, says, in closing his excellent little "Life:" 
 "The Church never forgives and faction does not die 
 out. But Milton has been, for two centuries, getting 
 beyond the reach of party, whether as friends or as 
 
 foes We shall prefer to read the fashionable 
 
 novels of each season as it passes, but we shall choose 
 to be represented at the international congress of 
 world poets by Shakespeare and MUton; Shakespeare 
 first, and next Milton." 
 
 \ 
 
 [^4]
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 ' HIS is the month, and this the happy 
 morn. 
 Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eter- 
 nal King, 
 Of wedded maid and virgin mother 
 
 born. 
 Our great redemption from above 
 did bring; 
 For so the holy sages once did sing, 
 
 That he our deadly forfeit should release. 
 And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. 
 
 II 
 
 That glorious form, that light unsufFerable, 
 And that far-beaming blaze of majestv. 
 Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table 
 To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, 
 He laid aside, and, here with us to be. 
 Forsook the courts of everlasting day. 
 And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. 
 
 ['7]
 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 III 
 
 Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein 
 
 Afford a present to the Infant God? 
 
 Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain. 
 
 To welcome him to this his new abode. 
 
 Now while the heaven, by the Sun's team untrod. 
 
 Hath took no print of the approaching light. 
 And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons 
 bright ? 
 
 IV 
 
 See how from far upon the eastern road 
 
 The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet! 
 
 Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode. 
 
 And lay it lowly at his blessed feet; 
 
 Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet. 
 
 And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire, 
 From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire. 
 
 [,8]
 
 THE HYMN 
 
 r was the winter wild. 
 While the heaven-born child 
 All meanly wrapt in the rude 
 manger lies; 
 Nature, in awe to him. 
 Had doffed her gaudy trim. 
 With her great Master so to 
 sympathize: 
 It was no season then for her 
 To wanton with the Sun, her lustv paramour. 
 
 II 
 
 Only with speeches fair 
 She woos the gentle air 
 
 To hide her guilty front with innocent snow. 
 And on her naked shame. 
 Pollute with sinful blame, 
 
 The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; 
 Confounded, that her Maker's eves 
 Should look so near upon her foul deformities. 
 
 [•9]
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 
 III 
 
 But he, her fears to cease. 
 
 Sent down the meek-eyed Peace: 
 
 She, crowned with olive green, came softly 
 sliding 
 Down through the turning sphere, 
 His ready harbinger. 
 
 With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; 
 And, waving wide her myrtle wand. 
 She strikes a universal peace through sea and land. 
 
 IV 
 
 No war, or battle's sound. 
 Was heard the world around; 
 
 The idle spear and shield were high uphung; 
 The hooked chariot stood. 
 Unstained with hostile blood; 
 
 The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; 
 And kings sat still with awful eye. 
 As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. 
 
 [20]
 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 But peaceful was the night 
 Wherein the Prince of Light 
 
 His reign of peace upon the earth began. 
 The winds, with wonder whist. 
 Smoothly the waters kissed. 
 
 Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean, 
 Who now hath quite forgot to rave. 
 While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed 
 wave. 
 
 VI 
 
 The stars, with deep amaze. 
 Stand fixed in steadfast gaze. 
 
 Bending one way their precious influence. 
 And will not take their flight. 
 For all the morning light. 
 
 Or Lucifer that often warned them thence; 
 But in their glimmering orbs did glow. 
 Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. 
 
 [21]
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 
 VII 
 
 And, thougii the shady gloom 
 Had given day her room. 
 
 The Sim himself withheld his wonted speed. 
 And hid his head for shame. 
 As his inferior flame 
 
 The new-enlightened world no more should need : 
 He sa^v a greater Sim appear 
 Than his bright throne or bmiiing axletree could 
 bear. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The shepherds on the lawn. 
 Or ere the point of dawn. 
 
 Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; 
 Full little thought they then 
 That the might}- Pan 
 
 Was kindly come to live with them below: 
 Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep. 
 Was all that did their siUy thoughts so busy keep. 
 
 [22]
 
 CHRIST'S N A T I \' I T V 
 
 IX 
 
 When such music sweet 
 Their hearts and ears did gres: 
 
 As never was by mortal tcger sn-ook. 
 Divinely-warbled voice 
 Answering the stringed noise. 
 
 As all their souls in blissful rapture took: 
 The air, such pleasure loch to lose. 
 With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly 
 dose. 
 
 Nature, th- : such ;•: _: : 
 
 Beneath thr 
 
 Of Cyntiiia's seat the 3hy region thrilling. 
 Now was aim : 
 To th'mi her pir: .'. oi done. 
 
 And that her re:~- '-•' -—^ '-" '.i'' ~ir."':r.z: 
 She knew such haj- ..... _..:.. 
 Could hold ail Heaven and Earth : .ion. 
 
 [=3
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 
 XI 
 
 At last surrounds their sight 
 A globe of circular light. 
 
 That with long beams the shame faced Night ar- 
 rayed; 
 The helmed cherubim 
 And svvorded seraphim 
 
 Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed. 
 Harping in loud and solemn quire. 
 With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new-born Heir. 
 
 XII 
 
 Such music (as 'tis said) 
 Before was never made. 
 
 But when of old the Sons of Morning sung. 
 While the Creator great 
 His constellations set. 
 
 And the well-balanced World on hinges hung. 
 And cast the dark foundations deep. 
 And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. 
 
 [-4]
 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 XIII 
 
 Ring out, ye crystal spheres! 
 Once bless our human ears, 
 
 If ye have power to touch our senses so; 
 And let your silver chime 
 Move in melodious time; 
 
 And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; 
 And with your ninefold harmony 
 Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. 
 
 XIV 
 
 For, if such holy song 
 Enwrap our fancy long. 
 
 Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold; 
 And speckled Vanity 
 Will sicken soon and die; 
 
 And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould; 
 And Hell itself will pass away. 
 And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. 
 
 [^5]
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 
 XV 
 
 Yea, Truth and Justice then 
 
 Will down return to men, ! 
 
 Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, 
 Mercy will sit between, * 
 
 Throned in celestial sheen, I 
 
 With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; 
 And Heaven, as at some festival. 
 Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. 
 
 XVI 
 
 But wisest Fate says No, 
 This must not yet be so; 
 
 The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy 
 That on the bitter cross 
 Must redeem our loss. 
 
 So both himself to glorify : 
 Yet first, to those ychained in sleep. 
 The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through 
 the deep. 
 
 [26]
 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 XVII 
 
 With such a horrid clang 
 As on Mount Sinai rang. 
 
 While the red fire and smouldering clouds out 
 brake: 
 The aged Earth, aghast. 
 With terror of that blast. 
 
 Shall from the surface to the centre shake. 
 When, at the world's last session. 
 The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his 
 throne. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 And then at last our bliss 
 Full and perfect is. 
 
 But now begins; for from this happy day 
 The Old Dragon, underground. 
 In straiter limits bound. 
 
 Not half so far casts his usurped sway. 
 And, wroth to see his kingdom fail. 
 Swings the scaly horror of his tail. 
 
 [^7]
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 
 XIX 
 
 The Oracles are dumb; 
 No voice or hideous hum 
 
 Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 
 Apollo from his shrine 
 Can no more divine. 
 
 With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. 
 No nightly trance, or breathed spell. 
 Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 
 
 XX 
 
 The lonely mountains o'er. 
 And the resounding shore, 
 
 A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; 
 From haunted spring, and dale 
 Edged with poplar pale. 
 
 The parting Genius is with sighing sent; 
 With flower-inwoven tresses torn 
 The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets 
 mourn. 
 
 [28] 
 
 ! 
 
 I
 
 i 
 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 XXI 
 
 In consecrated earth. 
 And on the holy hearth. 
 
 The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint; 
 In urns, and altars round, 
 A drear and dying sound 
 
 Affrights the flamens at their service quaint; 
 And the chill marble seems to sweat. 
 While each peculiar Power forgoes his wonted seat. 
 
 XXII 
 
 Peor and Baalim 
 
 Forsake their temples dim. 
 
 With that twice-battered God of Palestine; 
 And mooned Ashtaroth, 
 Heaven's queen and mother both. 
 
 Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine: 
 The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn; 
 In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz 
 mourn. 
 
 [--9l 
 
 448052
 
 ON THE MORNING OF 
 
 XXIII 
 
 And sullen Moloch, fled. 
 Hath left in shadows dread 
 
 His burning idol all of blackest hue; 
 In vain with cymbal's ring 
 They call the grisly king. 
 
 In dismal dance about the furnace blue; 
 The brutish gods of Nile as fast, 
 Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Nor is Osiris seen 
 
 In Memphian grove or green. 
 
 Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings 
 loud; 
 Nor can he be at rest 
 Within his sacred chest; 
 
 Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud; 
 In vein with timbreled anthems dark. 
 The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshiped ark. 
 
 [30]
 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 XXV 
 
 He feels from Juda's land 
 The dreaded Infant's hand; 
 
 The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; 
 Nor all the gods beside 
 Longer dare abide. 
 
 Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: 
 Our Babe, to show his Godhead true. 
 Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew, 
 
 XXVI 
 
 So, when the sun in bed. 
 Curtained with cloudy red, 
 
 Pillows his chin upon an orient wave. 
 The flocking shadows pale 
 Troop to the infernal jail. 
 
 Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave. 
 And the yellow-skirted fays 
 
 Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved 
 maze. 
 
 [?']
 
 CHRIST'S NATIVITY 
 
 XXVII 
 
 But see! the virgin blest 
 Hath laid her Babe to rest. 
 
 Time is our tedious song should here have ending: 
 Heaven's youngest-teemed star 
 Hath fixed her polished car. 
 
 Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; 
 And all about the courtly stable 
 Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable. 
 
 [3^]
 
 i
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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