Mine enemies shall all be blank, and dashed With much confusion; then, grown red with shame, They shall return in haste the way they came, And in a moment shall be quite abashed, PSALM VII August 14, 1653 Upon the words of Chush the Benjamite against him LORD, my God, to thee I fly; Lord, my God, if I have thought Let the enemy pursue my soul, Rise, Jehovah, in thine ire; So the assemblies of each nation ΤΟ 20 All people from the world's foundation. 30 Return on high, and in their sight. Judge me, Lord; be judge in this But the just establish fast, Since thou art the just God that tries In him who, both just and wise, 40 Saves the upright of heart at last. God is a just judge and severe, His sword he whets; his bow hath bended The tools of death that waits him near. (His arrows purposely made he He digg'd a pit, and delved it deep, His mischief, that due course doth keep, Fall on his crown with ruin steep. Then will I Jehovah's praise PSALM VIII August 14, 1653 O JEHOVAH Our Lord, how wondrous great When I behold thy heavens, thy fingers' art, The moon and stars, which thou so bright hast set That him thou visit'st, and of him art found? With honour and with state thou hast him crowned. O'er the works of thy hand thou mad'st him lord; All flocks and herds, by thy commanding word, And glorious is thy name through all the earth! IO 20 SCRAPS FROM THE PROSE WRITINGS 66 FROM OF REFORMATION TOUCHING CHURCH DISCIPLINE IN ENGLAND," 1641 [DANTE, Inferno, xix. 115] AH, Constantine, of how much ill was cause, [PETRARCH, Sonnet 107] FOUNDED in chaste and humble poverty, 'Gainst them that raised thee dost thou lift thy horn, [ARIOSTO, Orl. Fur, xxxiv. Stanz. 80] THEN passed he to a flowery mountain green, FROM THE APOLOGY FOR SMECTYMNUUS, 1642 [HORACE, Sat. i. 1, 24] LAUGHING to teach the truth What hinders? as some teachers give to boys [HORACE, Sat. i. 10, 14] JOKING decides great things Stronglier and better oft than earnest can. [SOPHOCLES, Electra, 624] 'Tis you that say it, not I. You do the deeds, And your ungodly deeds find me the words. FROM AREOPAGITICA, 1644 [EURIPIDES, Supplices, 438] THIS is true liberty, when freeborn men, WHOM do we count a good man? Whom but he Who keeps the laws and statutes of the senate, But his own house, and the whole neighbourhood, よ FROM THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN, 1670 [In Geoffrey of Monmouth the story is that Brutus the Trojan, wandering through the Mediterranean, and uncertain whither to go, arrived at a dispeopled island called Leogecia, where he found, in a ruined city, a temple and oracle of Diana. He consulted the oracle in certain Greek verses, of which Geoffrey gives a version in Latin elegiacs; and Milton translates these.] GODDESS of Shades, and Huntress, who at will Walk'st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep, On thy third reign, the Earth, look now, and tell What land, what seat of rest thou bidd'st me seek, What certain seat, that I may worship thee For aye, with temples vowed, and virgin quires. 967 [Sleeping before the altar of the Goddess, Brutus received from her, in vision, an answer to the above in Greek. Geoffrey quotes the traditional version of the same in Latin elegiacs, which Milton thus translates.] BRUTUS, far to the west, in the ocean wide, |