commentary of at a solemn music by john milton

In “At a Solemn Music,” Milton invokes music and poetry to describe their power to remind and imbue us with divine images and experience. Lines 1-16 of the poem describe the power and splendor of heavenly singing, accumulating energy as they engage with the image of God and with the themes of time and song. In these lines Milton connects present and eternity, earth and heaven, art and divine encounter. In the first few lines, Milton combines metrical devices to set the poem off to a slow, stumbling start. Though the poem is written, for the most part, in iambic pentameter, all of the first four lines break rhythm by starting with a stressed syllable (“Blest,” “Sphere,” “Wed,” “Dead”), and the first 3 lines break meter by containing eleven syllables instead of ten. The rhythm within the lines is irregular and erratic, frequently encumbered by laborious syntax like “inbreathed sense” (line 4). While the rest of the poem maintains mostly a couplet rhyme scheme, the rhymes of the first four lines are alternating. All this changes at line 5, when each line consistently starts with an unstressed syllable and becomes a perfect iambic pentameter byline 7. Particularly because of the slowness of the preceding lines, the brisk pyrrhic “And to” at the beginning of line 5 is doubly effective in accelerating the poem into a regular rhythm that builds up to the first climactic moment in line 8. With reverence and awe, line 8 introduces God for the first time. Its meter converges from the poem’s basic pentameter to a mere trimester, making the line the culmination of the lyrical energy that led up to it. However, though the lines surrounding line 8 are loaded with resplendent description, line 8 obliquely refers to God, “To him that sits thereon,” and then refrains from giving any further detail of him. In addition, the line breaks off. Not only does it lack two metrical feet, but it also does not adequately consummate the couplet rhyme with the previous line. The anticipated depiction of God has been truncated. This failure to represent God, paradoxically, is a tacit proclamation that such a supreme being is inexpressible with words and cannot be contained in poetry. Apart from his inability to articulate a description of God, the poet also aims to shield the reader from God’s glory. When Moses first encountered the burning bush, the prophet hid his face in fear- God’s image is so overwhelming that no one can experience it without perishing. Because the poet cannot represent God and the reader cannot encounter God, line 8 only leaves us with a white space in which we contemplate the unspeakable sublime.