Milton! Thou Shouldst be Living at this Hour
William Wordsworth comes back from France and realises with a shock what his own country has become.
1802
King George III 1760-1820
William Wordsworth comes back from France and realises with a shock what his own country has become.
1802
King George III 1760-1820
In 1802, William Wordsworth returned from a brief trip across the Channel and was suddenly struck by the ugly noise of London. He was not singing the praises of post-revolutionary Paris, where ‘quiet desolation’ reigned. But England’s complacent wealth, her vanity and parade, were no better, for he could detect little happiness in them, and no moral fibre.
MILTON! thou should’st be living at this hour:*
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters:* altar, sword, and pen,*
Fireside,* the heroic wealth of hall and bower,*
Have forfeited their ancient English dower*
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart,
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:*
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free.
So didst thou travel on life’s common way
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.*
From ‘The Complete Poems of William Wordsworth’ Vol. IV (1904, 1910). The head of each section includes comments by Wordsworth.
* John Milton (1608-1674), one of England’s finest poets. He was a diplomat and civil servant working for the Council of State, the executive power of Oliver Cromwell’s short-lived republic. A man of zeal and religious conviction, Milton thought deeply on moral, social and political questions and championed free speech against the repression of both King and Parliament. See posts tagged John Milton.
This is an example of metaphor. ‘England is like a stagnant fen’ is a simile, but ‘England is a stagnant fen’ is a metaphor.
* Wordsworth is saying that the Church, the armed forces and the arts had all failed the country. This trick of referring to something by one of its recognisable attributes (altar = religion, sword = the military, pen = writers) is known as metonymy, and each word is a metonym. Wordsworth uses several in this sonnet.
* ‘The fireside’ indicates the ordinary family home, which has also been affected by the general spirit of the age.
* ‘Hall and bower’ indicates the stately homes of the hereditary aristocracy (halls) and their beautiful estates and gardens (bowers). Greed and show have corrupted and diminished noble families that once set a better example to the country.
* A dower is a legacy, especially a widow’s lifetime share of her late husband’s estate. Wordsworth is saying that inner happiness ought to be the inheritance of every Englishman, but it has been given up (forfeited) for the sake of greedy materialism and mindless fashions.
* Compare Revelation 1:15: “and his voice as the sound of many waters”.
Wordsworth praises Milton’s self-discipline, high principles and courageous defence of free speech; but he also draws attention to his moderation, commending him for being able to enjoy ordinary comforts too.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.