England's Antiphon

That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

That is, "stand and wait, ready to go when they are called." Everybody knows the sonnet, but how could I omit it? Both sonnets will grow more and more luminous as they are regarded.

The following I incline to think the finest of his short poems, certainly the grandest of them. It is a little ode, written to be set on a clock-case.

ON TIME

Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race.
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace,
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours—
Which is no more than what is false and vain,
And merely mortal dross:
So little is our loss!
So little is thy gain!
For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed,
And last of all thy greedy self consumed,
Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual kiss; that cannot be divided—
And joy shall overtake us as a flood; [eternal.
When everything that is sincerely good,
And perfectly divine
With truth and peace and love, shall ever shine
About the supreme throne
Of him to whose happy-making sight alone
When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
Then, all this earthy grossness quit,
Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit
Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time.

The next I give is likewise an ode—a more beautiful one. Observe in both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the ode, being that which gives its solemnity the character yet of a song, or rather, perhaps, of a chant.

In this he calls upon Voice and Verse to rouse and raise our imagination until we hear the choral song of heaven, and hearing become able to sing in tuneful response.

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC

Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ—
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce—
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent[105 - Concent is a singing together, or harmoniously.]
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
To him that sits thereon,
With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee;
Where the bright seraphim, in burning row,
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow;
And the cherubic host in thousand choirs,
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly;
That we on earth, with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise—
As once we did, till disproportioned[106 - Music depends all on proportions.] Sin
Jarred against Nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed
In perfect diapason,[107 - The diapason is the octave. Therefore "all notes true." See note 2, p. 205.] whilst they stood
In first obedience and their state of good.
O may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort[108 - An intransitive verb: he was wont.] us unite,
To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light!

Music was the symbol of all Truth to Milton. He would count it falsehood to write an unmusical verse. I allow that some of his blank lines may appear unrhythmical; but Experience, especially if she bring with her a knowledge of Dante, will elucidate all their movements. I exhort my younger friends to read Milton aloud when they are alone, and thus learn the worth of word-sounds. They will find him even in this an educating force. The last ode ought to be thus read for the magnificent dance-march of its motion, as well as for its melody.

Show me one who delights in the Hymn on the Nativity, and I will show you one who may never indeed be a singer in this world, but who is already a listener to the best. But how different it is from anything of George Herbert's! It sets forth no feeling peculiar to Milton; it is an outburst of the gladness of the company of believers. Every one has at least read the glorious poem; but were I to leave it out I should have lost, not the sapphire of aspiration, not the topaz of praise, not the emerald of holiness, but the carbuncle of delight from the high priest's breast-plate. And I must give the introduction too: it is the cloudy grove of an overture, whence rushes the torrent of song.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the son of heaven's eternal 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.

That glorious form, that light insufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont[109 - The birds called halcyons were said to build their nests on the water, and, while they were brooding, to keep it calm.] 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.

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?