The great John Milton was born on this day in 1608.
Milton was a disputant, a man of letters, at one point a bureaucrat, a theological and political speculator, but most of all a poet. Considered one of the greatest produced within the bounds of Great Britain, one or two consider him their greatest.
Me, I like Milton’s theological speculations. He rejected the trinity and was a principal in publishing an English edition of the Racovian Catechism. He appears to have evolved into a form of monist, and I think correctly categorized as a pantheist.
But, most of all he was a poet.
The Wikipedia article dedicated to him tells us “Milton’s use of blank verse, in addition to his stylistic innovations (such as grandiloquence of voice and vision, peculiar diction and phraseology) influenced later poets. At the time, poetic blank verse was considered distinct from its use in verse drama, and Paradise Lost was taken as a unique exemplar.”
A small example of his work is his sonnet On His Blindness composed around the time his blindness overtook him.
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience to prevent
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.”
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