John Milton

English obstinacy and Latin extravagance

Behind the pale prim face;

Emotions’ polity exercised his guile.

What was freedom,after all,

That it could so pain and kill?


To read was to act; ungovernable truth

Founded wild Americas

In his garden,among the wet roses

And hidden snakes;solitary there,

He recalled lost friends,the touch

Of men,that dangerous scripture

Delicately censored in the dark.

Neither God nor nation could keep

The heart from self-destruction.


He translated with his hands the fire

Of New Troy;the Tiber flowed

Into the Thames; Athens now was London;

The ancient world’s battles were re-fought

In muddy northern fields.

Appetite had his head on the block,

A laughing regicide in the republic

Of desire.Eden’s painted savage

Englished into a civil man.


Saturn presided over the masque;

Centaurs’ hooves beat the bounds

Of his verses,singing out psalms

To devious concupiscent Jehovah.

What trespass had he committed

That God had confiscated the light

From his eyes? Nonetheless he parsed

The signs in nature and attended

That secret parliament within.

The covenant,unbroken, authored

Immense designs from memory

And hope.Like a troublesome daughter,

Language tyrannised the old man,

Horned viper words envenoming

His veins,under the evening star.

Where else but in hell could he feel?