JOHN MILTON (1608 – 1674)

John Milton the great poet who was a civil servant too.

He was a  staunch Puritan, and a spokesman was for free speech.

He was a great scholar, known also  as a polyglot

Who traveled to France and Italy when he was about thirty.

During this trip he met the scientist Galileo

When the latter was seventy,  and was somewhat blind

And under house arrest because of the Inquisition

When Milton was in his forties he too became blind.

In politics he was for Cromwell, the Lord Protector.

So he supported the execution of King Charles the First.

Milton was a thinker who believed in predestination.

He strongly held the view that virtue must come from freewill.

He was a spokesman for Liberty, and he wrote eloquently too.

He married thrice in his life, not all quite successful.

He had always wanted to write a very long epic

Like the great ones such as Homer and Virgil.

In this context at one time he planned to write an epic

On the Arthurian Cycle, but for various reasons

This desire or project  did not materialize, alas.

BLANK VERSE

Milton liked blank verse  in English and made it popular,

Where meter alone counts with no rhymes in poetry.

It was in this format that he wrote Paradise Lost.

[As an avid rhymer, I think, giving up rhymes comes at a cost:

It may be regarded perhaps  as another Paradise Lost.