As with Christmas, so with Easter

I have made it one of the traditions of this blog to quote Milton's verse, from the Nativity Ode, every Christmas Day.

I won't do likewise for Easter, but just this once I will look at this sacred day, through majestic 17th century verse, this time from Milton's

Paradise Regained.

From the title alone (and from the fact that it is a sequel of sorts to Paradise Lost) some one who hadn't read it might guess that the poem Paradise Regained would be set amidst the events of Easter week, when according to Christian faith the possibility of salvation was truly regained for the human species.

But no ... though philosophically that is exactly what Milton's PR is about, that is not the dramatic setting. The events of the poem take place during Jesus' sojourn in the desert, (Luke, chapter 4) with Milton giving us his own distinctive take on the temptations of the devil, and Jesus' majestic "Get thee behind me."

And I think on this week's end of the choir of angels who in Milton's telling appear and praise Jesus after his triumph over Satan's temptations, thus:

For, though that seat of earthly bliss be failed,
A fairer Paradise is founded now
For Adam and his chosen sons, whom thou,
A Saviour, art come down to reinstall;
Where they shall dwell secure, when time shall be,
Of tempter and temptation without fear.
But thou, Infernal Serpent! shalt not long
Rule in the clouds. Like an autumnal star,
Or lightning, thou shalt fall from Heaven, trod down
Under his feet.

PARADISE REGAINED, Book IV, lines 612-621.