A GREAT POET.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2369, 9 December 1908, Page 6

A GREAT POET.

JOHN MILTON

(By “Tamihana.”)

December 9th, 1608, just three hundred years ago to-day, there tv as born in tiie heart of London one who, in subsequent years, tvas destined to exert a great influence over public opinion, and by whose magnificent woi'k the literature of the British race was raised to a plane previously unreached. I refer to John Milton, one of the greatest poets the world has ever seen. The son of a worthy father, in himself a most interesting man, Milton’s boyhood was spent in a -refined atmosphere, in which music was an ever-present' feature. His education was the best- bis parents could give him and in liis sixteenth year he was a scholarly and highly accomplished lad. Even ut this early stage he had shown literary abilities of no mean order, a fid we Icaihi from himself. that his exercises ‘'in English or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly the flatter,” had begun to attract attention. Shortly after ho •went to the Cambridge University, and at the ago of 20 took his B.A. degree, and four years later, the degree of M.’A. Milton had originally intended becoming a clergyman, but finding that lie could not honestly conform to the obligations required and disgusted with the system of high prelacy then prevailing in the Church of England, ho resolved to dedicate his life to scholarship and literature. His sentiments in this connection were expressed in the sonnet “On Arriving at the Age of Twenty-three.” From this time he commenced t.o write in earnest, treating many themes in amanner which bespoke the high intellect and keen insight of the scholar. Of his later life I i'liave not the space to write. We know how effectively he used his talent to sway public, opinion during the long years of civil strife in England, under the Cromwell regime, and wo know, too, with what unswerving courage and infinite patience he bore liis great (affliction of blindness. The pathos of Jiis “Sonnet on liis Own Blindness” is very real and is a very striking indication of the grandeur of liis character under adversity. There may have been times when the tragedy of Samson Agonistes struck very near. Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonored, quelled, To what can I be useful? wherein servo My nation, and the work from heaven imposed ? But this, after all, was but the appearance and not the reality. Bohn and brought up in an atmosphere of Puritanism, Milton’s mental and moral development vA is shell as would inevitably leave an indelible impression on those whom he reached either in person or through his writings. At the age of twenty-three he uroce: It shall be in strictest measure, even To that same lot however mean or high, Towards which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven; ? All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great task-master’s eye. To this high resolve, the poet remained ever faithful. The same sentiment was expressed in Michael’s advice to Adam :

“Nor love, thy life, nor hate; but what tliou ilivest live well.” This .Milton tried to do and how tar ho succeeded is eloquently testified to by the esteem in which liis memory this been held by tile generations of later years. A writer of verse of exquisite literary beauty, ;a lover, of truth and righteousness in their highest forms, a. leader of thought, and an ever-fearless champion of the oppressed, Milton’s memory tas iived untarnished for three hundred years, and to-day, more than ever, is the name of this man of the noblest aims and purest character held in the highest regard. .