mble ode_ which follows. We must take
note of the change in the metric form which marks the transition from the
introduction to the ode. In the stanzas of the former the lines all have
five accents, except the last, which has six; while in the latter, four
lines have three accents each, one has four, two have five, and one has
six. Notice also the occasional hypermetric lines, such as line 47.

In connection with Milton's Hymn, read Alfred Domett's _It was the calm
and silent night_.

5. For so the holy sages once did sing. See Par. Lost XII 324.

6. our deadly forfeit should release. Compare Par. Lost III 221, and see
the idea of _releasing a forfeit_ otherwise expressed in the Merchant of
Venice IV 1 24.

10. he wont. This is the past tense of the verb _wont_, meaning to _be
accustomed_. See the present, Par. Lost I 764, and the participle, I 332.

15. thy sacred vein. See _vein_ in the same sense, Par. Lost VI 628.

19. the Sun's team. Compare Comus 95, and read the story of Phaethon in
Ovid's Metamorphoses II 106.

24. prevent them with thy humble ode. See _prevent_ in this sense, in
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar V 1 105, and in Psalm XXI 3.

28. touched with hallowed fire. See Acts II 3. On the meaning of secret,
compare Par. Lost X 32.

41. Pollute is the participle, exactly equivalent to _polluted_.

48. the turning sphere. For poetical purposes Milton everywhere adopts
the popular astronomy of his day, which was based on the ancient, i.e.
the Ptolemaic, or geocentric system of the universe. Copernicus had
already taught the modern, heliocentric theory of the solar system, and
his innovations were not unknown to Milton, who, however, consistently
adheres to the old conceptions. In Milton, therefore, we find the earth
the centre of the visible universe, while the sun, the planets, and the
fixed stars revolve about it in their several _spheres_. These spheres
are nine in number, arranged concentrically, like the coats of an onion,
about the earth, and, if of solid matter, are to be conceived as being of
perfectly transparent crystal. Beginning with the innermost, they present
themselves in the following order: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile. In Par. Lost
III 481, the ninth sphere appears as "that crystalline sphere whose
balance weighs the trepidation talked," and the Primum Mobile, or the
first moved, becomes the tenth and outermost of the ser