...anticlericalism to his reading of Milton. In short, the blind poet who in 1667 had asked for 'Celestial Light' to Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers...may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight (Milton 1990: 201) was himself enlisted as a secular scripture in the cause of what was already, by...

...book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of nature's works to me expunged and razed, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much...see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight. (PL, 1n.4o-55)1 The passage turns, as the poem turns, upon God's ability to bring light out of darkness....

...divine force in it" (21-22). Milton speaks from within the same tradition: So much the rather them Celestial Light Shine inward, and the mind through...that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.20 The classical notion of poetic genius as exemplified and recounted by Plato, Sidney, and Milton...

...Paradise Lost, will be the last exponent of this great tradition of philosophical self-expression: So much the rather, Thou Celestial Light, Shine inward...that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.1 Yet such prayers were usually regarded as part of a preliminary stage in the lifting of the...

...being cut off 'from the cheerful ways of men', Presented with a universal blank Of nature's works ... So much the rather thou celestial Light Shine inward,...that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.42 Andrew Marvell took up the theme of compensation for blindness in 'On Paradise Lost', prefixed...

...explicit reference to the poet's blindness, who can sing the invisible, just because he cannot see: So much the rather thou Celestial Light Shine inward,...may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight (Ibid.: 54-55, III, 51-55). Visuality is censured, and exhibited as the means fit only to portray evil,...

...them to that end ; in a question, moreover, where so many adventurers have so miserably miscarried. So much the rather, thou celestial light, Shine inward,...see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight*. * Milton. 48 CHAPTER IV. HAVING thus disposed of the word " Cloic-teach," which Dr. Ledwich so relied...

...universal blank Of nature's works to me expunged and razed, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 50 So much the rather thou celestial Light Shine inward,...see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight. 31 On Mr Milton 's 'Paradise Lost ' ANDREW MARVELL Printed in the second edition of Paradise Lost (1674)....

...Book of knowledge fair Presented with a Universal blanc Of Nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out, So much...see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight. (40-55) Milton's poetic invocations are unusual in developing such a deeply personal and inward perspective,...

...universal blank Of nature's works to me expunged and razed, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 50 So much the rather thou celestial light Shine inward,...to mortal sight. Now had the almighty Father from above, From the pure empyrean where he sits High throned above all height, bent down his eye, His own...