“...on the green terf fuck the honied fhowres.”

“There I fuck the liquid ayr”

The effs r esses. Printed on handmade paper and bound in vellum, this is Noel Douglas's 1926 replica of Milton's 1645 Poems. When I bought it the pages were still uncut. A real experience to handle and read it and as close as I should think I'll ever come to the real thing. The poems aren't too bad either.

Milton is a poet very interested in form. Exact metre and rhyme and all without mangling the language. Some brilliant turns of phrase and the soundscapes of the poems are just superb. I single L'Allegro out for special praise. As soon as I'd finished it I went straight back to the beginning and read it again. Very rare for me to immediately reread a poem of that length.

Milton is a readable poet, because he has the gift, but also I think because there is no emotional content to bind you up. Take the poems about people who have died. He seems incapable of expressing his own grief or making you feel grief. But he wants to reach for that effect, I think. His choice to translate Psalm 136 is particularly telling. If you've ever been lucky enough to hear that Psalm sung plain you will know what a vast emotional impact it can have, but of all the psalms it must have the highest ratio of rhetoric to personal input from the psalmist. Your emotional response is a rhetorical trick. I'm not complaining: I like rhetoric. Milton is a performer and I look forward to reading Paradise Lost. ( )