Volume > Issue > Milton on the Monday After Easter Break

Milton on the Monday After Easter Break

A POEM

By Linda Peavy | April 1984

Fifteen ‘til seven now

(That’s by my watch which nowadays

Is seven minutes fast to keep me

Rushed enough to make me stay on time)

So maybe it is really twenty-one ‘til

(My having used almost a sixty-second span

To write all this). Whatever. It’s no matter.

The tub is full and I must bathe,

Then dress, then look at Milton notes

and try to get my mind on teaching

how the great blind poet sought

to justify the ways of God to man.

Did he succeed? I rather doubt he did.

But that, like what o’clock it is,

is still no matter. For life is full

and man must bathe and dress himself

and go to meet his day with will that’s free

(as long as it obeys the sovereign Will).

Odd thing. Such freedom almost always tempts

the cat-mind to adventure out

until it meets the Fall and then is able

to agree with Milton’s Satan that

“Myself is Hell.”

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

To Angela, Who Is Afraid of Clowns

Clowns are grandfathers

painted with strokes of laughter

who kiss lollipops

but never lick them.

Pain of Late Conversion

Have mercy, Lord, and by your blood

wash from my brain

the sly recurring pain

Praise

Oh endless pattern in the trees.

You weave a world for me

Of endless beauty,…