That art which knew to join all parts in one,
Makes the least violent separation.
Yet though our ligaments betimes grow weak,
We must not force them till themselves they break.
Pythagoras bids us in our station stand,
Till God, our general, shall us disband.
Wise Solon dying, wish'd his friends might grieve,
That in their memories he still might live.
Yet wiser Ennius gave command to all
His friends, not to bewail his funeral;
Your tears for such a death in vain you spend,
Which straight in immortality shall end.
In death if there be any sense of pain,
But a short space to age it will remain ;
On which, without my fears, my wishes wait,
But timorous youth on this should meditate:
Who for light pleasure this advice rejects,
Finds little, when his thoughts he recollects.
Our death (though not its certain date) we know ; | And Nature shows (without philosophy)

He th' immortality of souls proclaim'd,
(Whom th' oracle of men the wisest nam'd.)
Why should we doubt of that, whereof our sense
Finds demonstration from experience?
Our minds are here, and there, below, above;
Nothing that's mortal can so swiftly move.
Our thoughts to future things their flight direct,
And in an instant all that 's past collect.
Reason, remeinbrance, wit, inventive art,
No nature, but immortal, can impart.
Man's soul in a perpetual motion flows,
And to no outward cause that motion owes;
And therefore that no end can overtake,
Because our minds cannot themselves forsake.
And since the matter of our soul is pure
And simple, which no mixture can endure
Of parts, which not among themselves agree;
Therefore it never can divided be.

Nor whether it may be this night or no:
How then can they contented live, who fear
A danger certain? and none knows how near.
They err, who for the fear of death dispute,
Our gallant actions this mistake confute.
Thee Brutus, Rome's first martyr I must name,
The Curtii bravely div'd the gulph of flame;
Attilius sacrific'd himself, to save

That faith, which to his barbarous foes he gave;
With the two Scipio's did thy uncle fall,
Rather than fly from conquering Hannibal
The great Marcellus (who restored Rome)
His greatest foes with honour did intomb.
Their lives how many of our legions threw
Into the breach? whence no return they knew.
Must then the wise, the old, the learned, fear
What not the rude, the young, th' unlearn'd for-
bear?

Satiety from all things else doth come,
Then life must to itself grow wearisome.
Those trifles wherein children take delight
Grow nauseous to the young man's appetite;
And from those gaieties our youth requires
To exercise their minds, our age retires.
And when the last delights of age shall die,
Life in itself will find satiety.
[hear,
Now you, my friends, my sense of death shall
Which I can well describe, for he stands near.
Your father, Lælius, and your's, Scipio,
My friends, and men of honour, I did know;
As certainly as we must die, they live
That life which justly may that name receive:
Till from these prisons of our flesh releas'd,
Our souls with heavy burthens lie oppress'd;
Which part of man from Heaven falling down,
Earth, in her low abyss, doth hide and drown,
A place so dark to the cœlestial light,
And pure eternal fire 's quite opposite.
The gods through human bodies did disperse
Ar heavenly soul, to guide this universe,
That man, when he of heavenly bodies saw
The order, might from thence a pattern draw;
Nor this to me did my own dictates show,
But to the old philosophers I owe.

I heard Pythagoras, and those who came
With him, and from our country took their name;
Who never doubted but the beams divine,
Deriv'd from gods in mortal breasts did shine.
Nor from my knowledge did the ancients hide
What Socrates declar'd the hour he dy'd;

What cannot be divided, cannot die.
We ev'n in early infancy discern,
Knowledge is born with babes before they learn;
Ere they can speak, they find so many ways
To serve their turn, and see more arts than
days:

Before their thoughts they plainly can express,
The words and things they know are numberless,
Which Nature only, and no art could find,
But what she taught before, she call'd to mind.
These to his sons (as Xenophon records)
Of the great Cyrus were the dying words;
"Fear not when I depart (nor therefore mourn)
I shall be no where, or to nothing turn:
That soul, which gave me life, was seen by none,
Yet by the actions it design'd, was known;
And though its flight no mortal eye shall see,
Yet know, for ever it the same shall be.
That soul, which can immortal glory give,
To her own virtues must for ever live.
Can you believe, that man's all-knowing mind
Can to a mortal body be confin’d?

Though a foul foolish prison her immure

On Earth, she (when escap'd) is wise and pure.
Man's body, when dissolv'd, is but the same
With beasts, and must return from whence it
came;

But whence into our bodies reason flows,
None sees it, when it comes, or where it goes.
Nothing resembles death so much as sleep,
Yet then our minds themselves from slumbers keep,
When from their fleshly bondage they are free,
Then what divine and future things they see!
Which makes it most apparent whence they are,
And what they shall hereafter be, declare."
This noble speech the dying Cyrus made.
Me, Scipio, shall no argument persuade,
Thy grandsire, and his brother, to whom Fame
Gave, from two conquer'd parts o' th' world, their

name,

Nor thy great grandsire, nor thy father Paul,
Who fell at Cannæ against Hannibal;
Nor I (for 'tis permitted to the ag'd
To boast their actions) had so oft engag'd
In battles, and in pleadings, had we thought,
That only Fame our virtuous actions bought;
"Twere better in soft pleasure and repose
Ingloriously our peaceful cyes to close:
Some high assurance hath possest ny mind,
After my death an happier life to find.

THE

POEMS

JOHN MILTON.

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