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One of the ancients,once said that poetry is "the mirror of the perfect soul." Instead of simply writing down travel notes or, not really thinking about the consequences, expressing your thoughts, memories or on paper, the poetic soul needs to seriously work hard to clothe the perfect content in an even more perfect poetic form.
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What is poetry?


Reading books RomanceThe unity of form and content is what distinguishes poetry from other areas of creativity. However, this is precisely what titanic work implies.
Not every citizen can become a poet. If almost every one of us, at different times, under the influence of certain reasons or trends, was engaged in writing his thoughts, then it is unlikely that the vast majority will be able to admit to themselves that they are a poet.
Genre of poetry touches such strings in the human soul, the existence of which a person either didn’t suspect, or lowered them to the very bottom, intending to give them delight.


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Read books online » Poetry » Paradise Lost by John Milton (crime books to read .TXT) 📖

Book online «Paradise Lost by John Milton (crime books to read .TXT) 📖». Author John Milton



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Which I enjoy; and must confess to find In all things else delight indeed, but such As, used or not, works in the mind no change, Nor vehement desire; these delicacies I mean of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits, and flowers, Walks, and the melody of birds: but here Far otherwise, transported I behold, Transported touch; here passion first I felt, Commotion strange! in all enjoyments else Superiour and unmoved; here only weak Against the charm of Beauty’s powerful glance.

Or Nature failed in me, and left some part Not proof enough such object to sustain; Or, from my side subducting, took perhaps More than enough; at least on her bestowed Too much of ornament, in outward show Elaborate, of inward less exact.

For well I understand in the prime end Of Nature her the inferiour, in the mind And inward faculties, which most excel; In outward also her resembling less

His image who made both, and less expressing The character of that dominion given O’er other creatures: Yet when I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems And in herself complete, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say, Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best: All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded; Wisdom in discourse with her Loses discountenanced, and like Folly shows; Authority and Reason on her wait,

As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and, to consummate all, Greatness of mind and Nobleness their seat Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, as a guard angelick placed.

To whom the Angel with contracted brow.

Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part; Do thou but thine; and be not diffident Of Wisdom; she deserts thee not, if thou Dismiss not her, when most thou needest her nigh, By attributing overmuch to things

Less excellent, as thou thyself perceivest.

For, what admirest thou, what transports thee so, An outside? fair, no doubt, and worthy well Thy cherishing, thy honouring, and thy love; Not thy subjection: Weigh with her thyself; Then value: Ofttimes nothing profits more Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right Well managed; of that skill the more thou knowest, The more she will acknowledge thee her head, And to realities yield all her shows: Made so adorn for thy delight the more, So awful, that with honour thou mayest love Thy mate, who sees when thou art seen least wise.

But if the sense of touch, whereby mankind Is propagated, seem such dear delight Beyond all other; think the same vouchsafed To cattle and each beast; which would not be To them made common and divulged, if aught Therein enjoyed were worthy to subdue The soul of man, or passion in him move.

What higher in her society thou findest Attractive, human, rational, love still; In loving thou dost well, in passion not, Wherein true love consists not: Love refines The thoughts, and heart enlarges; hath his seat In reason, and is judicious; is the scale By which to heavenly love thou mayest ascend, Not sunk in carnal pleasure; for which cause, Among the beasts no mate for thee was found.

To whom thus, half abashed, Adam replied.

Neither her outside formed so fair, nor aught In procreation common to all kinds,

(Though higher of the genial bed by far, And with mysterious reverence I deem,) So much delights me, as those graceful acts, Those thousand decencies, that daily flow From all her words and actions mixed with love And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned Union of mind, or in us both one soul; Harmony to behold in wedded pair

More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear.

Yet these subject not; I to thee disclose What inward thence I feel, not therefore foiled, Who meet with various objects, from the sense Variously representing; yet, still free, Approve the best, and follow what I approve.

To love, thou blamest me not; for Love, thou sayest, Leads up to Heaven, is both the way and guide; Bear with me then, if lawful what I ask: Love not the heavenly Spirits, and how their love Express they? by looks only? or do they mix Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch?

To whom the Angel, with a smile that glowed Celestial rosy red, Love’s proper hue, Answered. Let it suffice thee that thou knowest Us happy, and without love no happiness.

Whatever pure thou in the body enjoyest, (And pure thou wert created) we enjoy In eminence; and obstacle find none

Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars; Easier than air with air, if Spirits embrace, Total they mix, union of pure with pure Desiring, nor restrained conveyance need, As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.

But I can now no more; the parting sun Beyond the Earth’s green Cape and verdant Isles Hesperian sets, my signal to depart.

Be strong, live happy, and love! But, first of all, Him, whom to love is to obey, and keep His great command; take heed lest passion sway Thy judgement to do aught, which else free will Would not admit: thine, and of all thy sons, The weal or woe in thee is placed; beware!

I in thy persevering shall rejoice,

And all the Blest: Stand fast;to stand or fall Free in thine own arbitrement it lies.

Perfect within, no outward aid require; And all temptation to transgress repel.

So saying, he arose; whom Adam thus

Followed with benediction. Since to part, Go, heavenly guest, ethereal Messenger, Sent from whose sovran goodness I adore!

Gentle to me and affable hath been

Thy condescension, and shall be honoured ever With grateful memory: Thou to mankind Be good and friendly still, and oft return!

So parted they; the Angel up to Heaven From the thick shade, and Adam to his bower.

Book IX

No more of talk where God or Angel guest With Man, as with his friend, familiar us’d, To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast; permitting him the while Venial discourse unblam’d. I now must change Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt, And disobedience: on the part of Heaven Now alienated, distance and distaste, Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given, That brought into this world a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery Death’s harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument Not less but more heroick than the wrath Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous’d;

Or Neptune’s ire, or Juno’s, that so long Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea’s son: 00482129

If answerable style I can obtain

Of my celestial patroness, who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplor’d,

And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse:

Since first this subject for heroick song Pleas’d me long choosing, and beginning late; Not sedulous by nature to indite

Wars, hitherto the only argument

Heroick deem’d chief mastery to dissect With long and tedious havock fabled knights In battles feign’d; the better fortitude Of patience and heroick martyrdom

Unsung; or to describe races and games, Or tilting furniture, imblazon’d shields, Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights At joust and tournament; then marshall’d feast Serv’d up in hall with sewers and seneshals; The skill of artifice or office mean, Not that which justly gives heroick name To person, or to poem. Me, of these Nor skill’d nor studious, higher argument Remains; sufficient of itself to raise That name, unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp my intended wing Depress’d; and much they may, if all be mine, Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.

The sun was sunk, and after him the star Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter “twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night’s hemisphere had veil’d the horizon round: When satan, who late fled before the threats Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv’d In meditated fraud and malice, bent

On Man’s destruction, maugre what might hap Of heavier on himself, fearless returned From compassing the earth; cautious of day, Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven, The space of seven continued nights he rode With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line He circled; four times crossed the car of night From pole to pole, traversing each colure; On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth Found unsuspected way. There was a place, Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change, Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise, Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the tree of life: In with the river sunk, and with it rose Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land, From Eden over Pontus and the pool

Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;

Downward as far antarctick; and in length, West from Orontes to the ocean barred At Darien ; thence to the land where flows Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed With narrow search; and with inspection deep Considered every creature, which of all Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.

Him after long debate, irresolute

Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark, As from his wit and native subtlety

Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed, Doubt might beget of diabolick power Active within, beyond the sense of brute.

Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief His bursting passion into plaints thus poured.

More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built With second thoughts, reforming what was old!

O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred For what God, after better, worse would build?

Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps, Light above light, for thee alone, as seems, In thee concentring all their precious beams Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven Is center, yet extends to all; so thou, Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee, Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth Of creatures animate with gradual life Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man.

With what delight could I have walked thee round, If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, Now land, now sea and shores with forest crowned, Rocks, dens, and caves! But I in none of these Find place or refuge; and the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me, as from the hateful siege Of contraries: all good to me becomes Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.

But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven’s Supreme; Nor hope to be myself less miserable By what I seek, but others to make such As I, though thereby worse to me redound: For only in destroying I find ease

To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed, Or won to what may work his utter loss, For whom all this was made, all this will soon Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe; In woe then; that destruction wide may range: To me shall be the glory sole among

The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days Continued making; and who knows how long Before had been contriving? though perhaps Not longer than since I, in one night, freed From

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