Famous Milton Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Milton poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous milton poems. These examples illustrate what a famous milton poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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A poem on the rising glory of America

...rient rays. 
I see the age the happy age roll on 
Bright with the splendours of her mid-day beams, 
I see a Homer and a Milton rise 
In all the pomp and majesty of song, 
Which gives immortal vigour to the deeds 
Atchiev'd by Heroes in the fields of fame. 
A second Pope, like that Arabian bird 
Of which no age can boast but one, may yet 
Awake the muse by Schuylkill's silent stream, 
And bid new forests bloom along her tide. 
And Susquehanna's rocky stream unsung, 
In bright ...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry


An Ode in Time of Hesitation

...s it for this our fathers kept the law? 
This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? 
Are we the eagle nation Milton saw 
Mewing its mighty youth, 
Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth, 
And be a swift familiar of the sun 
Where aye before God's face his trumpets run? 
Or have we but the talons and the maw, 
And for the abject likeness of our heart 
Shall some less lordly bird be set apart? -- 
Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat? 
Some gorger in...Read more of this...
by Moody, William Vaughn

Comus

...A Masque Presented At Ludlow Castle, 1634, Before 

The Earl Of Bridgewater, Then President Of Wales.

The Persons

 The ATTENDANT SPIRIT, afterwards in the habit of THYRSIS.
COMUS, with his Crew.
The LADY.
FIRST BROTHER.
SECOND BROTHER.
SABRINA, the Nymph.

The Chief Persons which presented were:—

The Lord Brackley;
Mr. Thomas Egerton, his Brother;
The L...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Humanitad

...y glory hymned
By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon,
And died to show that Milton's England still could bear a son!

And yet I cannot tread the Portico
And live without desire, fear and pain,
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago
The grave Athenian master taught to men,
Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,
To watch the world's vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,
Those ...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar

London 1802

...Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William


Paradise Lost: Book 01

...Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the World, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 
Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top 
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire 
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed 
In the b...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...High on a throne of royal state, which far 
Outshone the wealth or Ormus and of Ind, 
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand 
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, 
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised 
To that bad eminence; and, from despair 
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires 
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue 
Vain war with Heaven; ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw 
The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud, 
Then when the Dragon, put to second rout, 
Came furious down to be revenged on men, 
Woe to the inhabitants on earth! that now, 
While time was, our first parents had been warned 
The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped, 
Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime 
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl, 
When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep 
Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred, 
And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound 
Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, 
Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song 
Of birds on every bough; so much the...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...No more of talk where God or Angel guest 
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd, 
To sit indulgent, and with him partake 
Rural repast; permitting him the while 
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change 
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach 
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt, 
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven 
Now alienated,...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 10

...Mean while the heinous and despiteful act 
Of Satan, done in Paradise; and how 
He, in the serpent, had perverted Eve, 
Her husband she, to taste the fatal fruit, 
Was known in Heaven; for what can 'scape the eye 
Of God all-seeing, or deceive his heart 
Omniscient? who, in all things wise and just, 
Hindered not Satan to attempt the mind 
Of Man, with str...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 11

...Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn 
From his displeasure; in whose look serene, 
When angry most he seemed and most severe, 
What else but favour, grace, and mercy, shone? 
So spake our father penitent; nor Eve 
Felt less remorse: they, forthwith to the place 
Repairing where he judged them, prostrate fell 
Before him reverent; and both confessed 
Humbly...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Samson Agonistes

...Of that sort of Dramatic Poem which is call'd Tragedy.


TRAGEDY, as it was antiently compos'd, hath been ever held the
gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other Poems:
therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear,
or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is
to temper and reduce them to just measur...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Bride of Abydos

...superfluous; but to whose pages all will be delighted to recur. 

(43) "And airy tongues that syllable men's names." — MILTON....Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Dungeon

...p;Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme [Footnote 4: "Most musical, most melancholy." This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The Author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps th...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Growth of Love

...would be heard
Or writ so oft in all the world as those,--
Dan Chaucer, mighty Shakespeare, then for third
The classic Milton, and to us arose
Shelley with liquid music in the world. 

5
The poets were good teachers, for they taught
Earth had this joy; but that 'twould ever be
That fortune should be perfected in me,
My heart of hope dared not engage the thought.
So I stood low, and now but to be caught
By any self-styled lords of the age with thee
Vexes my modesty, lest they...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...ommand of the
heavenly host, is calld the Devil or Satan and his children are
call'd Sin & Death
But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan.
For this history has been adopted by both parties
It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out. but the
Devils account is, that the Messi[PL 6]ah fell. & formed a heaven
of what he stole from the Abyss
This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to
send the comforter or Desire that Reason may have Idea...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Pleasures of Melancholy

...penser saw,
When thro' bewild'ring Fancy's magic maze,
To the fell house of Busyrane, he led
Th' unshaken Britomart; or Milton knew,
When in abstracted thought he first conceiv'd
All heav'n in tumult, and the Seraphim
Come tow'ring, arm'd in adamant and gold.
Let others love soft Summer's evening smiles,
As listening to the distant waterfall,
They mark the blushes of the streaky west';
I choose the pale December's foggy glooms.
Then, when the sullen shades of evening close,
W...Read more of this...
by Warton, Thomas

The Vision of Judgment

...kies; 
Infernal thunder shook both sea and land 
In all the planets, and hell's batteries 
Let off the artillery, which Milton mentions 
As one of Satan's most sublime inventions. 

LIII 

This was a signal unto such damn'd souls 
As have the privilege of their damnation 
Extended far beyond the mere controls 
Of worlds past, present, or to come; no station 
Is theirs particularly in the rolls 
Of hell assign'd; but where their inclination 
Or business carries them in search ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Waste Land

...Aeneid, I. 726:
 dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et
noctem flammis
 funalia
vincunt.
98. Sylvan scene. V. Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 140.
99. V. Ovid, Metamorphoses, vi, Philomela.
100. Cf. Part III, l. 204.
115. Cf. Part III, l. 195.
118. Cf. Webster: "Is the wind in that
door still?"
126. Cf. Part I, l. 37, 48.
138. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton's Women beware
Women.
III. THE FIRE SERMON
176. V. Spenser, Prothalamion.
192. Cf. The Tempest, I. ii.
196. Cf....Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

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