In Chaos; and the work begun, how soon To magnify his works, the more we know: Held by thy voice, thy potent voice, he hears; His generation, and the rising birth Haste to thy audience, night with her will bring h End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine. This also thy request, with caution ask'd, Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve Thee also happier, shall not be withheld Thy hearing; such commission from above Of knowledge within bounds; beyond, abstain 120 I have received, to answer thy desire To ask; nor let thine own inventions' hope And the great light of day. Mr. Thyer is of opinion that there is not a greater instance of our author's exquisite skill in the art of poetry than this and the following lines. There is nothing more really to be expressed than Adam's telling Raphael his desire to hear the continuance of his relation: and yet the poet, by a series of strong and noble figures, has worked it up into half a score of as fine lines as any in the poem. Lord Shaftesbury has observed, that Milton's beauties generally depend upon solid thought, strong reasoning, noble passion, and a continued thread of moral doctrine; but in this place he has shown what an exalted fancy and mere force of poetry can do.-NEWTON. Lord Shaftesbury had not a very accurate idea of Milton's genius; which, if it had all the qualities here ascribed to it, was not less rich and gigantic in imagination and invention. End. h Bid his absence, till thy song The sun did stand still at the voice of Joshua.-NEWTON. -et euntem multa loquendo Detinuit sermone diem. i Thine own inventions. So in Psalm evi. 29: "Thus they provoked him to anger with their own inventions." -PEARCE. The invisible King. As God is styled, 1 Tim. i. 17, "The invisible King," so this is the properest epithet that could have been employed here, when he is speaking of "things not revealed, Only Omniscient, hath suppress'd in night, Know then, that, after Lucifer from heaven All like himself rebellious; by whose aid 125 190 135 At least our envious foe hath fail'd, who thought 140 This inaccessible high strength, the seat Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed, He trusted to have seized, and into fraud Drew many, whom their place1 knows here no more; They open to themselves at length the way Up hither, under long obedience tried; 145 150 155 And earth be changed to heaven, and heaven to earth, One kingdom, joy and union without end. Meanwhile inhabit lax, ye powers of heaven; And thou, my Word, begotten Son, by thee 160 suppressed in night, to none communicable in earth or heaven," neither to men nor angels; as it is said of the day of judgment, Matt. xxiv. 36: "Of that day and hour knoweth no man: no not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."-NEWTON. * Nourishment to wind. See St. Paul, 1 Cor. viii. 1: "Knowledge puffeth up.”—TODD. 1 Whom their place. See Job vii. 10: "Neither shall his place know him any more."-NEWTON. My overshadowing Spirit and Might with thee So spake the Almighty, and to what he spake, Great triumph and rejoicing was in heaven, When such was heard declared the Almighty's will; 165 170 173 160 To future men, and in their dwellings peace: Glory to him, whose just avenging ire Had driven out the ungodly from his sight Of spirits malign, a better race to bring So sang the hierarchies: meanwhile the Son On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore 185 190 195 200 205 210 See Luke i. 35: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."-NEWTON. They view'd" the vast immeasurable abyss Said then the omnific Word; your discord end! Far into Chaos, and the world unborn; For Chaos heard his voice: him all his train Then stay'd the fervid wheels; and in his hand In God's eternal store, to circumscribe This universe, and all created things: One foot he centred, and the other turn'd They view'd. n From the shore Here is a most magnificent picture, breathing all the powers of poetry. • Silence, ye troubled waves. 215 220 225 230 235 240 How much does the brevity of the command add to the sublimity and majesty of it! It is the same kind of beauty that Longinus admires in the Mosaic history of the creation it is of the same strain with the same "Omnific Word's" calming the tempest in the Gospel, when he said to the raging sea, "Peace, be still." Mark iv. 39. And how elegantly has he turned the commanding words, silence and peace, making one the first and the other the last in the sentence, and thereby giving the greater force and emphasis to both!-NEWTON. P He took the golden compasses. See Prov. viii. 27: "When he prepared the heavens I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the deep."-RICHARDSON. q Thus God the heaven created. The reader will naturally remark how exactly Milton copies Moses in his account of the creation. The seventh book of Paradise Lost may be called a larger sort of paraphrase upon the first chapter of Genesis: Milton not only observes the same series and order, but preserves the very words as much as he can.-NEWTON. Let there be light, said God. Gen. i. 3.-"And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." This is the Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sojourned the while. God saw the light was good; He named. Thus was the first day even and morn: By the celestial quires, when orient light Birth-day of heaven and earth: with joy and shout 245 250 255 6 And touch'd their golden harps, and hymning praised Amid the waters, and let it divide The waters from the waters: and God made In circuit to the uttermost convex Of this great round; partition firm and sure, Of Chaos far removed; lest fierce extremes The earth was form'd, but in the womb as yet 260 265 270 275 passage that Longinus particularly admires; and no doubt its sublimity is greatly owing to its conciseness: but our poet enlarges upon it, endeavouring to give some account how light was created the first day, when the sun was not formed till the fourth day. He says that it was sphered in a radiant cloud, and so journeyed round the earth in a cloudy tabernacle; and herein is he justified by the authority of some commentators, though others think this light shone but imperfectly, and did not appear in full lustre till the fourth day.-NEWTON. With joy and shout. Job. xxxviii. 4, 7. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"-NEWTON. t Let there be firmament. See Gen. i. 6:"Firmament" signifies expansion.-NEWTON. " And heaven. So Gen. i. 8. According to the Hebrews, there were three heavens. The first is the air, wherein the clouds move, and the birds fly; the second is the starry heaven; and the third is the habitation of the angels and the seat of God's glory. Milton is speak ing here of the first heaven, as he mentions the others in other places.-NEWTON. |