“On Mr. Milton's Paradise Lost”

When I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold, In slender Book his vast Design unfold, Messiah Crown'd, Gods Reconcil'd Decree, Rebelling Angels, the Forbidden Tree, Heav'n, Hell, Earth, Chaos, All; the Argument Held me a while misdoubting his Intent, That he would ruine (for I saw him strong) The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song, (So Sampson groap'd the Temples Posts in spight) The World o'rewhelming to revenge his Sight. Yet as I read, soon growing less severe, I lik'd his Project, the success did fear; Through that wide Field how he his way should find O're which lame Faith leads Understanding blind; Lest he perplext the things he would explain, And what was easie he should render vain. Or if a Work so infinite he spann'd, Jealous I was that some less skilful hand (Such as disquiet alwayes what is well, And by ill imitating would excell) Might hence presume the whole Creations day To change in Scenes, and show it in a Play. Pardon me, Mighty Poet, nor despise My causeless, yet not impious, surmise. But I am now convinc'd, and none will dare Within thy Labours to pretend a Share. Thou hast not miss'd one thought that could be fit, And all that was improper dost omit: So that no room is here for Writers left, But to detect their Ignorance or Theft. That Majesty which through thy Work doth Reign Draws the Devout, deterring the Profane. And things divine thou treats of in such state As them preserves, and Thee in violate. At once delight and horrour on us seize, Thou singst with so much gravity and ease; And above humane flight dost soar aloft, With Plume so strong, so equal, and so soft. The Bird nam'd from that Paradise you sing So never Flags, but alwaies keeps on Wing. Where couldst thou Words of such a compass find? Whence furnish such a vast expense of Mind? Just Heav'n Thee, like Tiresias, to requite, Rewards with Prophesie thy loss of Sight. Well might thou scorn thy Readers to allure With tinkling Rhime, of thy own Sense secure; While the Town-Bays writes all the while and spells, And like a Pack-Horse tires without his Bells. Their Fancies like our bushy Points appear, The Poets tag them; we for fashion wear. I too transported by the Mode offend, And while I meant to Praise thee, must Commend. Thy verse created like thy Theme sublime, In Number, Weight, and Measure, needs not Rhime.

The “Mower” poems

"The Mower Against Gardens" is the first of the "Mower" sequence, an attack on the sophistications of human invention and a praise of Nature's proper mixture vs. the hybrids' "Forbidden mixtures" and "nutriment" that changes our kind. The poem's disgust with the freaks produced by science is balanced with the praise of Nature's "wild and fragrant innocence" (34).

"Damon the Mower" exploits the figure of paradox in eleven 8-line stanzas of tetrameter couplets. The mistress's "cruelty," refusing to return Damon's love, distracts the mower until his scythe does to him what he did to the grass. The figure of love as a wound also is used--it could be compared with many a Petrarchan conceit, but here it is combined with the pastoral mode.

"The Mower to the Glowworms" continues to evoke the distracting and destructive effects of love by wishing the glowworms might show the Mower the way back to himself, which he has lost in his delirium.

"The Mower's Song" continues the "mower mown" paradox of "Damon" within a more complex stanza structure. Note that, throughout the poem, Damon is unable to simply name the deed by which he makes his living ("to mow") and instead employs circumlocution.

"The Garden" returns to the praise of idealized Nature and contrasts it with the fallen state of things under human domination. The quest to re-imagine the un-fallen world leads the poet to a kind of ekstasis in which his language becomes almost nonsense: what exactly would one be thinking were one to think "a green thought in a green shade" (48). This return to Eden leads the persona to imagine God-the-Gardener and Adam as the first Gardener's helper. This has direct relevance for Milton, who was Marvell's mentor and predecessor as Cromwell's Latin Secretary.