''On the Morning of Christ's Nativity'' is a nativity ode written by

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...

in 1629 and published in his ''Poems of Mr. John Milton'' (1645). The poem describes Christ's Incarnation and his overthrow of earthly and pagan powers. The poem also connects the Incarnation with

Christ's Crucifixion The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and consider ...

Background

Milton composed ''On the Morning of Christ's Nativity'' in December 1629, after celebrating reaching the age of maturity in England,Corns 2003 p. 216 in commemoration of the

Nativity of Jesus The nativity of Jesus, nativity of Christ, birth of Jesus or birth of Christ is described in the biblical gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea, his mother Mary was engaged to a man ...

. It was written while Charles Diodati, Milton's friend, was composing his own poem, and the poem reflects his sober, contemplative lifestyle in comparison to Diodati's extravagant way of living. The ode was composed during a time in Milton's life that he based his understanding of religion on Scripture, but he was still influenced by myth. Although the ode was the first poem of Milton's 1645 collection, it was not the first poem that he wrote; many of the Latin and Greek poems included in the 1645 collection were composed during an earlier time. According to Thomas Corns, "Quite probably, its location indicates the poet's assessment of its quality"; this consideration is significant because Humphrey Moseley, an important bookseller, was the publisher of the volume and the ode serves as an introduction to Milton's poetry.

Form

The poem is divided into two sections. "The Hymn," which comprises the bulk of the poem (27 stanzas) is prefaced by a four stanza introduction. Milton's introductory stanzas are seven lines each: five lines of iambic pentameter, using the rhyme scheme ABABB, followed by a rhyming couplet. The final line of each stanza is written in iambic hexameter. For example, see the first stanza:

"This is the month, and this the happy morn / Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King, / Of wedded maid, and virgin mother born, / Our great redemption from above did bring; / For so the holy sages once did sing, / That he our deadly forfeit should release, / And with his Father work us a perpetual peace."

The hymnal stanzas are eight lines each, uniformly written in iambic meter. As in the introductory stanzas, the final two lines form a rhyming couplet, with a line in tetrameter followed by a line in hexameter, which closes out each stanza. The first six lines are made up of two tercets organized by the rhyme scheme AABCCB. The first two lines of each tercet are in trimeter, and the third in pentameter. For example, the first stanza of the Hymn:

"It was the winter wild, / While the Heav'n-born-child, / All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies; / Nature in awe to him / had doffed her gaudy trim / With her great master so to sympathize: / It was no season then for her / To wanton with the sun her lusty paramour."

Themes

The ode with ''The Passion'' and ''Upon the Circumcision'' form a set of poems that celebrate important Christian events: Christ's birth, the feast of the Circumcision, and Good Friday. The topic of these poems places them within a genre of Christian literature popular during the 17th century and places Milton alongside of poets like

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathe ...

Richard Crashaw Richard Crashaw (c. 1613 – 21 August 1649) was an English poet, teacher, High Church Anglican cleric and Roman Catholic convert, who was one of the major metaphysical poets in 17th-century English literature. Crashaw was the son of a famous ...

, and George Herbert. However, Milton's poetry reflects the origins of his anti-

William Laud William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 ...

and anti-Church of England based religious beliefs. The poem deals with both the Nativity and the Incarnation of Christ and Milton believed that the two were connected. The Nativity and the Crucifixion represent Christ's purpose as Christ in Milton's poetry, and contemporary poem, because Christ becomes human-like in the Nativity to redeem fallen man and humanity is redeemed when Christ sacrifices himself during the Crucifixion. Milton's reliance on the connection is traditional, and Milton further connects the Nativity with the creation of the world, a theme that is expanded upon later in Book VII of ''Paradise Lost''. Like the other two poems of the set and like other poems at the time, the ode describes a narrator within the poem and experiencing the Nativity.

Critical response

The ode has, according to Thomas Corns, "generally been recognized as Milton's first manifestation of poetic genius and, qualitatively, a poem to be set alongside '

Lycidas "Lycidas" () is a poem by John Milton, written in 1637 as a pastoral elegy. It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, ''Justa Edouardo King Naufrago'', dedicated to the memory of Edward King, a friend of Milton at Cambridge who dro ...

' and '' A Masque presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634'' as his most significant poetic works before ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 16 ...

''." He further claims that the ode "rises in many ways above the rather commonplace achievements of Milton's other devotional poems and stands out from the mass of other early Stuart poems about Christmas."Corns 2003 p. 221

In music

* In 1928 the first complete setting of Milton's ''Ode'' was undertaken by the Cambridge composer

Cyril Rootham Cyril Bradley Rootham (5 October 1875 – 18 March 1938) was an English composer, educator and organist. His work at Cambridge University made him an influential figure in English music life. A Fellow of St John's College, where he was also or ...

. The work is set for soli, chorus, semi-chorus and orchestra. * Portions of the ode are set as part of the text of

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

' Christmas cantata, '' Hodie'' (1954). * Stanza XIII of the Hymn portion of this poem was set by Stephen Paulus in the second movement - "Ring Out! Ye Crystal Spheres" - of his 1990 work "Canticum Novum". * John Blackwood McEwen, ''Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity'', Ode for soprano, chorus and orchestra (1905).

Notes

References

* Corns, Thomas. "'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity', 'Upon the Circumcision' and 'The Passion'" in ''A Companion to Milton''. Ed. Thomas Corns. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. * Shawcross, John. ''John Milton: The Self and the World''. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:On The Morning Of Christ's Nativity 1629 poems 1645 poems Christian poetry Cultural depictions of the Nativity of Jesus Poetry by John Milton