On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Before bed last night I found myself puttering about my study looking for my copy of the Norton Anthology of English Literature. The last author in this volume is John Milton, and included in the collected poems is his "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity." The entire poem is wonderful, although I can't say I fully understand it all yet! But here are a few of the lines that I have begun to grasp and which especially struck me: some because of the powerful way in which they capture advent and others simply because they are so beautiful. (If you have the time, stop reading this post now and just go read the whole poem! You can find it here.)

This is the month, and this the happy morn

Wherein the son of Heaven's eternal King 

Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,

Our great redemption from above did bring;

For so the holy sages once did sing, 

That he our deadly forfeit should release, 

And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. 

That glorious form, that light unsufferable, 

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty 

Wherewith he wont at heaven's high council-table

To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, 

He laid aside; and here with us to be, 

Forsook the courts of everlasting day, 

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. 

                                  **

Only with speeches fair 

She [Nature] woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, 

And on her naked shame, 

Pollute with sinful blame, 

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw, 

Confounded that her Makers eyes 

Should look so near upon her foul deformities. 

                                 **

Such music (as 'tis said) 

Before was never made, 

But when of old the sons of morning sung, [Job 38: 4-7]

While the Creator great 

His constellations set,

And the well-balanced world on hinges hung, 

And cast the dark foundations deep, 

And bid the welt'ring waves their oozy channel keep. 

                                **

So when the sun in bed, 

Curtained with cloudy red, 

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave, 

The flocking shadows pale 

Troop to th' infernal jail; 

Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave; 

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.