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Subject Area: Literature
Collection: Banned Books
Topic: Epic Literature

( a ): Specimen of Milton’s spelling, from the Cambridge autograph manuscript. - John Milton, The Poetical Works of John Milton [1900]

Edition used:

The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited after the Original Texts by the Rev. H.C. Beeching M.A. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


(a)

Specimen of Milton’s spelling, from the Cambridge autograph manuscript.

On Time

  • set on a clock case
  • Fly envious Time till thou run out thy race
  • call on the lazie leaden-stepping howres
  • whose speed is but the heavie plummets pace
  • & glut thy selfe wth what thy womb devoures
  • wch is no more then what is false & vaine
  • & meerly mortall drosse
  • so little is our losse
  • so little is thy gaine
  • for when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d
  • & last of all thy greedie selfe consum’d
  • then long Æternity shall greet our blisse
  • wth an individuall kisse
  • and Joy shall overtake us as a flood
  • when every thing yt is sincerely good
  • & pfectly divine
  • with Truth, & Peace, & Love shall ever shine
  • about the supreme throne
  • of him t’ whose happy-making sight alone
  • when once our heav’nly-guided soule shall clime
  • then all this earthie grossnesse quit
  • attir’d wth starres wee shall for ever sit
  • Triumphing over Death, & Chance, & thee O Time.