Verses on John Milton’s Paradise Regained, Book IV (“Unobserved Home to His Mother’s House Private Returned”)

By Richard Mather

“Stuck in this uneasy station, what else

To do but to let these words I write

(Knowing that you, Son of God,

Will never write anything, other than

Some marks in the sand),

Lift you high and set you down on a green bank

Where angels serve celestial foods

And ambrosial wines

(Real or illusory, I discern not).

And as you partake,

You wait and hope for what you don’t see,

Not knowing if what you see is true,

Never knowing if it comes freely

Or costs you everything.

“Let others be led in circles by the devil

Let them be persuaded by his rhetoric,

Blinded by his illusions.

Let others lose themselves in the world’s

Profane places where carnal powers,

Which occupy godlike offices,

Pry into the chambers of the sleeping,

And the unspeakable desire to see

And know yields only cadavers and vanities,

Concealing true vision.

“You, though, shall rest here

And watch for the moment when you

Can leave the high-vaulted sky

For your mother’s low-roofed house

(Preserved and kept whole, by her, as always),

Towards which the soul

Leans, for the soul is not the self that goes

To heaven, but the self that,

After a long time abroad,

Retreats and finds its way home unobserved,

Away from profane eyes,

To retire, to talk, and to read in private.

And by vanquishing the world’s temptations

You regain lost paradise, which is above heroic

(Even if in secret done).”

--

Click here for main page

Click here for blog page

Instagram