“John Milton’s Argument” (from LIT)

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John Milton’s Argument

He rose from his desk and paced the room. He despised his loss of virtue, and it excited him as well. Then the vision ended, the dusky clouds descending, darkening the landscape, the evening dissolving into restless thoughts.

First in brief, the whole subject—how legions of angels were driven into a great deep, into the midst of things, fallen as if into utter darkness or out of a burning lake astonished, arising from confusion. Afterwards Pandemonium out of the deep—how he–definitely he–brought death into the world, rising out of Chaos like an oracle before a vast abyss. He became a darkness visible, a sorrow. But to the rebellious ones he was above them no matter how fallen. Not a total ruin, but, O how fallen from such a height he has fallen. In each of his hands are flames; his sole desire is whatever he once resisted.

All is not lost, but everything is endangered as far as essences can perish. We must be willing to work in fire in order to be certain. This fire breathes through a golden architrave—such is the magnificence we create in order to enshrine our gods. Yet still they fall, brushed into a trench–beyond hope, beyond powers and dominions—more glorious fallen and more dread. Less but not last.

This fire pursues us to our own destruction—driven out of bliss into woe destroyed into nothing this is what is apparently essential. But false hope makes the worse appear better in our thoughts, until utter dissolution is victorious.

Is this the worst? What can we suffer more? To sink into the deep for shelter? That would be worse. To plunge into cataracts of fire, or hurled into hope without end? That would be worse. But to suffer, as we do for things that disappear as people do, and ideas and ideals and realities as well? Vaporous in temperment, the fierce heart grows mild. How wearisome our hates.

In crystals there is something of the whirr of butterflies, of meteors, of bees hiving. In grey winds there is something of the salt of the sea. How in the dark a little weather remains, even as we dream. It rules us here as those in Heaven.

Try to see everything in one view! Whether we waste creation or dare to possess it all, God gave us joy as a way to enter heaven. Among the fallen is our home, and destruction is more tolerable when it’s deliverance.

Forget dark and wild, whirlwind and ruin where whole armies sank, where the shuddering damned continue to bring their sorrows to us, this universe where all life dies and all things are abominable, as two black clouds collide in mid-air. And for what?

Return to the noise and confusion that governs all of life. Neither sea nor shore nor air nor fire but all of these mixed confusingly together, fighting to create new worlds. The eldest of things—fear and chance—wander through ruin after ruin like stars too close to the moon. But without them there is no dawn.

Wander both in roses and the dark that surrounds them until it shines as all stars shine. There are hymns and sacred songs enough for those who have failed and fell. All wandering is made of flesh.

Meanwhile, the golden days of the all-in-all shine like jasper in hours of joy and hymning like the works of a man both monstrous and unkind to all who wander, as some have dreamed it, into a Paradise of Fools.

But all of this we discover as we wander.

Outside heaven, angels ascend and descend through a golden architrave. Stairs are let down a passage. In the marble air I stood among innumerable stars that seemed to lead to other worlds, a glowing fire glorious and rare. No obstacle did I find there, no shade from body can fall, the way a song flies upward and shines, revealing what it was was what we were and are until we are not and why we our sufferings must endure. Submit to joy each ambition tells us, submit to happy new delights. Yet all joy is lost to me. Was any eye ever clear of a happy sort?

Gathering flowers herself a flower was gathered—so strange she seemed, even with her more mysterious parts concealed. Not only the blossoms but the smell of freshly mowed fields and the grove’s trembling leaves. His shade whispered to her as she lay down and she yielded.

Shower upon Earth pure now purer air! A fountain to water the sky.  (Which now appears to be wandering.)

Joy is entered into–delights will vanish. Those who wronged you are now one and now another. Autumn dances with us, autumn whose praise is sung by those who compare her with fire, as the almighty is, from whom all substance all things that live. It pushes mountains upward and sends the sun over the walls of heaven. Wonder then not what our bodies are or what spirit we are.

There is a garden across Chaos, there is a golden architrave above the walls of Pandemonium, but the blaze of confusion is open to us. Thus from lifeless things all now devours each other. Is this the end of the world? Is it death itself? Is it just another death, when one renders back all that’s been given?

It was as though I sought it not but I lived it, against unimaginable odds. And to have it be so, I welcome earth insensible, not as some dismal place. Who knows what dies but that we had this life impossible! Both in me and without me. At last in our destruction an end to misery.

So be mild and gracious without wrath, let sorrow be as clouds driven by an unseen wind from afar. That they become rain we need not fear. Our ascent into heaven dissolves into joy and wonder though not yet understood. Beyond the abyss the clouds dissolve at last, where no eye can reach.

To obey is best, to observe all of Nature’s works, of air, of earth and sea, and the soul of all the rest, calm as each season when it’s over. She will descend into this sorrow and in her heart even the unwilling will be lost as the mist rises from the river and gathers in its vapor all that can be remembered of the world.