Milton Turns 400

Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I

And as I wake, sweet music breathe

Above, about, or underneath,

Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,

Or the unseen Genius of the wood.

But let my due feet never fail

To walk the studious cloister’s pale,

And love the high embowed roof,

With antique pillars massy proof,

And storied windows richly dight,

Casting a dim religious light:

There let the pealing organ blow

To the full voiced choir below,

In service high, and anthems clear,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear,

Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all Heav’n before mine eyes.

And may at last my weary age

Find out the peaceful hermitage,

The hairy gown and mossy cell

Where I may sit and rightly spell

Of every star that heav’n doth show,

And every herb that sips the dew;

Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain.

These pleasures, Melancholy, give,

And I with thee will choose to live.

–John Milton, from Il Penseroso (1631). Milton was born on December 9, 1609.

Listen to Kathleen Battle sing lines from Il Penseroso in a setting by George Frederick Handel from 1740