/ Here, renowned for his honor of the primitive faith, lives / a minister well-versed in feeding the sheep that worship Christ; / he, truly, is more than the other half of my soul: / I am constrained to live but half of my life without him. [20] / Alas for me, how many seas, how many mountains intervening / render me cut off from the other half of myself! / Dearer to me is he than you, most learned of Greeks, / to Cliniades,7 who was the great-grandson of Telamon; / than the lofty Stagirite8 to his noble pupil [25] / whom the genial daughter of Chaonia bore to Libyan Jove. / What the son of Amyntor, what the heroic son of Philyra / were to the king of the Myrmidons,9 such is he to me. / I first surveyed the Aonian retreats through his guiding, / and the sacred lawns of the twin-peaked mountain,10 [30] / and the Pierian water I drank, and by favor of Clio, / I thrice moistened my happy lips with pure Castalian wine. / But thrice has fiery Aethon seen the sign of the ram, / and overspread his woolly back with new gold, / and twice, Chloris, have you bestrewn the old earth with new [35] / grass, and twice Auster removed your wealth; / and yet I have not been allowed to feast my eyes on his countenance / or the sweet sounds of his speech to be drunk in by my ears.11 / Speed, therefore, and outrun noisy Eurus12 by your course. / How great is the need of my admonitions, circumstance shows; you yourself perceive. [40] / Perhaps you will find him sitting with his sweet wife, / stroking their dear children on his lap; / or perhaps meditating the copious volumes of the old fathers, / or the Holy Bible of the true God, / saturating the delicate souls with celestial dew, [45] / the sublime work of health-bearing religion. / As is the custom, be careful to deliver a hearty greeting, / to speak as would befit your master, if only he were present. / May you be mindful to cast your discreet eyes down a little on the ground / and to speak these words with modest mouth: [50] / These verses to you, if there is time for the delicate Muses between battles,13 / a devoted hand sends from the English shore. / Accept this sincere wish for your welfare, though it be late, / and may it be the more pleasing to you for that reason. / Late indeed, but genuine it was as that which [55] / the chaste Penelope, daughter of Icarius, received from her dilatory husband.14 / But why did I consent to cancel a manifest fault / which he himself is utterly unable to discharge? / He is justly reproved as tardy, and confesses his offence, / and is ashamed to have forsaken his duty. [60] / Do only you grant forgiveness to him confessed, and to him begging forgiveness; / crimes which lie exposed are wont to be destroyed. / No beast separates its jaws in fearful openings, / nor does the lion tear those lying prone with his wounding claw. / Often the cruel hearts of Thracian15 lance-bearers [65] / have melted at the melancholy pleas of a suppliant, / and extended hands avert the stroke of the thunderbolt, / and a small sacrifice pacifies the angry gods. / Now for a long while was there the impulse to write to you in that place, / and love would not endure to suffer further delays; [70] / for wandering rumor imparts—alas the truthful messager of calamities— / that in places neighboring upon you wars burst forth, / that you and your city are surrounded by fierce troops, / and that now the Saxon leaders have procured arms. / Everywhere around you Enyo is devastating the fields, [75] / and now blood soaks the land sown with the flesh of men. / And Thrace has yielded its Mars to the Germans; / father Mars has driven his Odrysian horses thither. / And now the ever-crested olive fades, / and the goddess16 detesting the brazen-sounding trumpet has fled, [80] / look, has fled the earth, and now it is believed / the just maid was not the last to fly to the mansions on high. / Nevertheless in the meanwhile the horror of war resounds around you, / and you live alone and destitute on the unfamiliar soil; / and in your foreign residence, indigent, you seek the sustenance [85] / which the hearth of your forefathers does not tender you. / Fatherland, hard parent, and more cruel than the white cliffs / which the spuming wave of your coast beats, / do you think it right thus to expose your innocent children? / To a strange soil thus do you drive them with hard-heartedness? [90] / and do you suffer them to seek livelihood in remote lands / whom provident God himself has sent to you, / and who bring joyous messages from heaven, and who / teach the way which leads beyond the grave to the stars?17 / Indeed, deservedly, may you, O Fatherland, live enclosed in Stygian darkness, [95] / and deservedly perish by the eternal hunger of the soul! / Just as the Tishbite prophet18 in days gone by / walked the lonely deserts of the earth with unaccustomed step / and the harsh wastes of Arabia, when he fled / from the hands of King Ahab and yours, Sidonian Fury, [100] / and in such fashion, with limbs lacerated by the dreadful-sounding whip, / was Cilician Paul19 driven from the Emathian city; / and the ungrateful citizen of fishy Gergessa / bade Jesus himself depart from his coasts.20 / But you, my tutor, take heart; let not your anxious hope fall from griefs, [105] / nor pale dread terrify your bones. / Although you may be covered over by shining arms / and a thousand spears threaten you with death, / assuredly your unarmed side shall not be violated by any weapon / and no lance will drink your blood. [110] / For you yourself will be safe under the radiant aegis of God.21 / He will be guardian to you, and he will be champion to you; / he who under the walls of Sion’s fortress / vanquished so many Assyrian soldiers in the silent night,22 / and turned in flight those whom venerable Damascus [115] / sent to the borders of Samaria from her ancient plains,23 / and affrighted the thronging cohorts with their terrified king / when the glorious trumpet sounded in the empty air, / when the horny hoof scourged the dusty plain, / when the driven chariot shook the sandy ground, [120] / and the neighing of horses rushing into battle was heard, / and the clanking of iron swords, and the deep roar of men. / And you (because it still remains for the sick at heart) remember to hope / and conquer these misfortunes by your magnanimous heart. / And do not doubt at one time or other to enjoy more fortunate years [125] / and to be able to see again your native home.

(Mar. ? 1627)

1 Young (1587?–1655) was Milton’s tutor in 1618–20(?). By 1620 he was in Hamburg, visiting England in Mar.–July 1621 and again sometime in Jan.–Apr. 1625 (see ll. 33–38); he returned sometime between Jan. and Mar. 1628.