On the Morning of Christ's Nativity by John Milton - Book Report/Review Example

John Milton’s skill as a poet is demonstrated in the language of imagery and symbolism here depicted in his poems “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” and “Lycidas.” Though the themes of each poem approach the spiritual concept of life from different angles, the incarnation and the resurrection, both herald these occasions by drawing upon a wide array of resources. Milton uses scenes from nature and superimposes upon them spiritual and mythical ideas in order to infuse them with the majesty of the event of which he writes or to which he alludes. Though the first poem, “On the morning of Christ’s Nativity,” deals primarily with the temporal aspect of Christ in the manger and the spectacle of such an event, Milton breaks through the constraints of time and accesses scenes of new life from diverse eras in order to feed the situation with its due amount of reverence. With the second poem, “Lycidas,” Milton does something similar, in that he treats the death of the mortal with such an eternal quality that it highlights the new and eternal life that is granted each human by the Christian doctrine to which he subscribed. In the poem that focuses on the birth of Christ, Milton effects a slight deviation of emphasis when he writes of the morning, rather than the night of Christ’s birth. The action has its desired effect, as morning is necessarily brings accompanied by the images of newness and life. The idea of Christ’s bringing redemption “from above” (1.4) dovetails with the image of the morning, as this new day or new life might be considered a gift from the rising sun, which issues its light from above. However, the comparison of the sun to Christ exists only in incipience here; later it becomes more obvious in the depiction of the sun recoiling in deference to the greater light of One who gives a greater life (VII.79-84). The idea of the Incarnation is present not just in the mention of Christ’s birth but in the treatment of the things surrounding it. Christ is named “that Light unsufferable” and is depicted as shedding the cover of his glorious environs; but being light, He penetrates and animates “a darksome house of mortal Clay” (II.14). This is a direct reference to the Incarnation, but it also calls forth the idea of the beginning of time and of all life, where God came down and animated not just the earth’s verdant cover, but the earth itself by blowing his breath into the clay and giving life to man. The image of death vanquished is also utilised as a method of infusing the lines with the idea of renewed life. This image is already implied in Milton’s use of the morning, as the light drives away the blanket night. However, just before the sunrise, Milton mentions the “spangled host [that] keep watch in squadrons bright” (II.21), and this demonstrates an inherent opposition in nature to the idea of an irrevocable death. It never fully gives itself over to the dark and is ready at every moment to be reborn and to once again belong completely to the light. The “Eastern road” (IV.22) again points toward the birth of the day, and the description of the wise men as being “Star-led” (IV.23), though a direct reference to the Magi being led by the Star of Bethlehem, shows itself a dual image in its ability to refer again to the sun (the star of the morning) which leads the men to the source of the truest life, clothed also in newness as a babe in a manger (IV.22-23). The stanza culminates in another image of life rising from the ashes of death, as the Altar is mentioned as having been “touched with hallow’d fire” (IV.28). The altar is one of sacrifice, a place where life is given over to death. But the fire that touches the altar calls to mind several ideas of renewed life. It is reminiscent of the biblical account in Isaiah, whose tongue is enlivened by the touch of fire, and it also calls to mind the phoenix, that mythical bird which perpetuates its defiance of death by arising again and again from ashes. The significance of the winter appears problematic, but Milton himself offers a solution in the lines describing the earth snowy garb: “it was not season then for her, to wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour” (35-36). She instead hides “her guilty front” (II.39), sympathising with her master and imitating the innocence of his newness and his deity. Winter becomes here the beginning as well as the end of life. The blanket of snow merely shields the transformation. Soon the images of life begin to swell as the Maker’s eyes shed beams upon the snow-covered earth and peace “crowned with olive green” (III.47) brings restoration back to the barren earth and causes it to teem again with life. The mildness of the winds begins a chain reaction, so that reverence begins to encroach upon the places where motion had reigned. The rivers, oceans, waves, and the birds who once sat still upon them begin their tribute to the newly arrived King for whom they had been preparing, and now for whom and by whom they are allowed to live again (V.61-68). Fuller reference is made to the dawn of time in lines 69-76, and is brought forth from the image of the angelic host that harps in choir in response to the birth the new born child. Never has such a choir sung since that time when the Creator laid the foundations of the universe and all was born. The music awakens the senses, too, it is said. It gives life to humans’ long-dormant ability to sense the quickening presence of the supernatural and transcendent. The trill of angel voices is compared to silver chimes, which in turn invoke the idea of the silver lining that rings out hope in the face of despair, life in the shadow of death. Time is then said to have acquired the ability to fly back and “fetch the age of gold” (XIV.135) and this too implies a rebirth of long lost epoch where life lay at the root of everything and death existed only in the eradication of itself, its effacement in the face of its truest opposite. The lines “And speckled vanity/Will sicken soon and die, /And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould, /And Hell itself will pass away, /And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day” (136-140) demonstrate the removal of all that is connected with sin and death, and their replacement through the emergence of light and life. This image of resurrection life that has crept in is temporarily tempered by the remembrance of the intervening work that must yet be accomplished by the picture of Incarnational life represented by the newborn in the manger. However, almost immediately, the images again burst forth into dynamic action that signals the crumbling of the death down to its foundations. Milton writes, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, With such a horrid clang As on mount Sinai rang While the red fire, and smouldering clouds out brake: The aged Earth aghast With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake (XVI.156; XVII.157-162). The earth, in response to the trump of Christ, spews forth its contents in the form of red fire, which is a symbol of life once swallowed up in incontinent death and now burst forth from its unworthy grave. The babe appears then to be a vessel into which all life is poured and from whom all life eventually springs again, so that even his future death is a violent herald of life. Following this, the images of life are often left to be negatively apprehended, as they are expressed through the mournful images of death. Life has arisen, so death is inconsolable. The fiendish Dragon is buried and hushed (XVIII.168), the oracle of Apollo has sadly abandoned Delphos as no more is an intervening seer necessary. Lars and Lemures, the gods of the dead, moan; and death sounds are heard coming from empty urns and altars that have given up their dead at the behest of life. In fact, paganism is trampled under the heels of the incarnate Son, the effect of whose death is this gloriously prefigured energy. These pagan gods of darkness have retreated at the brush of “the dreaded infant’s hand” and are blinded by the life-giving “rays of Bethlehem” (XXV.222/223). Then the sun (representing the newness of light) and the Son (representing the newness of life) become one in image and action, yet hidden in a peaceful slumber that is confident that the life newly ushered in is eternal and can never again be removed. Shadows part, each “to his several grave” (XXVI.234), and this image is accentuated by that of “yellow-skirted fays” (XXVI.235) also leaving, having as it seems dipped their skirts into the golden colour of ascending life. And through all this the baby sleeps and keeps in silence, but with life painted on his brow—a life unuttered by his lips, yet clearly articulated by his very presence, which was absence in the moments and ages before his birth. The poem “Lycidas” begins with an attempt to force life from an unripe season, a parallel of the untimely death that Lycidas has suffered. He has been premature harvested toward eternal life, and in the lines “I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude/ and shatter your leaves before the mellowing year” (lines 3, 5), the poet presents and image of life being demanded and wrested from matter in a manner inconsistent with the general idea of a life that uniformly passes into a greater life beyond death. The initial images of this poem allude primarily to death, as Lycidas’ fate is being told, yet flickers of life are visible even through this shroud. Lycidas’ ashes are kept in an urn, which is allusive of the jars of clay in which are contained the heavenly treasure of life. The muses are invoked and beckoned to spring from beneath the seat of Jove, and in this calling forth is a foreshadowing of the life that is to spring from death (15-20). The muses inspire the poet, who proceeds to incarnate the spirit of Lycidas by allowing it to inhabit his words. The poet’s reminiscences begin with Lycidas’ childhood, which the narrator had shared. These images of sucklings and weanlings are concrete references to newness, and the images that surround complement this and undergird the idea of freshness. The adventures of these lads occur mostly “under the opening eyelids of the morn” (26), further accentuating the greenness of the situation. The youths embark on expeditions in a rustic setting filled with “ditties” and in which satyrs danced and fauns clicked their heels. These goat-like images are hints of fertility that stems from the sexuality usually associated with them. For several lines death shrouds life, covering flowers and newly weaned animals, and thwarting the fiery attempts of light to burst through. The words of Phoebus the Roman sun god end the reign of despair, giving hope in the declaration that life cannot have its true expression on mortal soil (78-84). Though the shears of death has cut down Lycidas’ life, the praise of that life, Phoebus says, cannot die but will now be given new and greater renown because of his death. His fame prefigures his resurrection and is the first stage of his life after death. When his life is “spread aloft” (81) by the eyes of Jove, Lycidas’ fame shall be in heaven. This will grant him eternal life, as a new birth will take place through the rediscovering of his deeds and his worth by mortals and angels alike. Yet resurrection life must be preceded by death, and images of death abound, especially in the form of the sea which is accustomed to swallowing objects and covering them under its expanse like a grave. However, Neptune, the authority that governs the sea rages against this form of death. The vales are summoned to “cast their bells and flow’rets of a thousand hues” (135), and this spread of vegetation and colour introduces a wanton and concrete (material rather than merely spiritual) renewing of life. Other elements of nature join in the animation, and the whispers and gushing they engage in demonstrate a world teeming with revived hope and expectation. The showers fall from the sky to the earth, signalling the advent of the fruiting season. The activity of Nature is likened to the nursing of a newborn baby, as “the green turf suck the honeyed show’rs/and purple all the ground with vernal flow’rs” (140-141). The elements belie the solemnity of the time, casting an appearance of fervour and verdure upon what has been covered by death and mourning. Dolphins are ushered into the picture, and more hope is granted the situation, as these creatures are a sign of fortune that guard ships from peril. Therefore, although Lycidas’ body has died, his life is renewed daily like the “day-star” which buries itself likewise in the ocean, and yet rises again day after day, perpetually prefiguring Lycidas’ resurrection. The beams of the day-star re-appear with “new-spangled ore/ Flames in the forehead of the morning sky” (170-171), an image that calls to mind the birth of a child, his head becoming first visible like the morning on whose head light is shed. The idea of Lycidas’ being “sunk low but mounted high” (172) parallels with the resurrection life—the baseness of death preceding the exaltation of resurrection. And here too, Milton explicitly compares him with Christ, who was able to defy the vortex of death that drags bodies into the depth of watery graves. Transcending this, He walked on the surface of the water, effecting the defiance of death and rededication to life that is the hallmark of the resurrection. The song of the Marriage Supper, to be sung when the Church meets her Groom, foreshadows the day when death shall itself die and the earth will give birth to a new people. This strain is continued in the line that echoes that found in Revelation where the newborn saints “wipe the tears forever from [Lycidas’] eyes” (181). The image of the sun that had stretched a waning life out across the sky and fallen over the edge into the sea, returns once more to renew that life, but much more powerfully. His light makes all visible again, and he turns his attention to the vivifying and reanimation of all the things that on earth once despaired, drooped, or died in the season since he had gone. Throughout the poems “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” and “Lycidas,” images of new life abound. They are inherent in the incarnation found in the Nativity and the resurrection theme found in the “Lycidas.” Yet subtle images of life reside also in the contributory images that are incidental to the poems. The meanings are excavated and linked through the knowledge of general ideas connected with Nature, its creatures, and its elements. Newness is found in the dawn, the budding of flowers, the herald of angels, and the crowning of a baby. These pictures are painted or implied in the lines of these poems as Milton sought to draw exaltation from degradation and hope from despair. Works Cited Milton, John. “Lycidas.” Anthology. #th ed. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication. ---. “On the morning of Christ’s Nativity.” Anthology. #th ed. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication. Read More