Poem
Milton begins his poem by invoking the angels, and he claims that they too would need to cry along with mankind:
- So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along
- Through the soft silence of the list'ning night;
- Now mourn, and if sad share with us to bear
- Your fiery essence can distill no tear
- Burn in your sighs, and borrow
- Seas wept from our deep sorrow; (lines 4–9)
The final lines connect the act of Circumcision to Christ's Passion:
- And that great cov'nant which we still transgress
- Entirely satisfied,
- And the full wrath beside
- Of vengeful Justice bore for our excess,
- And seals obedience first with wounding smart
- This day: but O ere long
- Huge pangs and strong
- Will pierce more near his heart. (lines 21–28)
Read more about this topic: Upon The Circumcision
Famous quotes containing the word poem:
“I’ve never read a political poem that’s accomplished anything. Poetry makes things happen, but rarely what the poet wants.”
—Howard Nemerov (1920–1991)
“The poem refreshes life so that we share,
For a moment, the first idea . . . It satisfies
Belief in an immaculate beginning
And sends us, winged by an unconscious will,
To an immaculate end. We move between these points:
From that ever-early candor to its late plural....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“I want to show her one poem
which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate,
and wake.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)