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Paradise Lost: Found and Rebound

In this episode of A Spell in the Library we take down a 279 year old edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost. I speak of how I found and restored it and read you Milton’s wonderful invocation of light at the start of Book III, applying some of his words to our situation in lockdown and isolation. Here is the passage from Book III which I read: ...thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that rowle in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs, [ 25 ] Or dim suffusion veild. Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill, Smit with the love of sacred Song; but chief Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath [ 30 ] That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget Those other two equal'd with me in Fate, So were I equal'd with them in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides, [ 35 ] And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old. Then feed on thoughts, that voluntaries move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year [ 40 ] Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose, Or flocks, or heards, or human face divine; But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark [ 45 ] Surrounds me, from the chearful wayes of men Cut off, and for the Book of knowledge fair Presented with a Universal blanc Of Nature's works to mee expung'd and rasped And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out. [ 50 ] So much the rather thou Celestial light Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight. [ 55 ],