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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


JOHN MILTON by JOHN ORLEY ALLEN TATE

Poet Analysis

First Line: YOUR MIND WAS WROUGHT IN COSMIC SOLITUDE
Last Line: ME NOT WITH GOODNESS, BUT WITH THUNDERING VERSE.
Subject(s): MILTON, JOHN (1608-1674);

Your mind was wrought in cosmic solitude,
Through which careered an undulous pageantry
Of fiends and suns, darkness and boiling sea,
All held in ordered sway by beauty's mood.

Guest-champion lent by God, in might you stood
Before the throngs of men; you helped to free
Their souls; below, you played in heavenly key
Your heart's concerto - throbbing interlude.

But your suave Egoist, for selfish fame,
Hurled to the bogs of Hell the Rebel Will
And boxed him dark in freedom's smudgy hearse;
He paid blood-price for thought; his noble shame
Was like the Greeks. Ironically, you thrill
Me not with goodness, but with thundering verse.



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