“Sing, Heavenly Muse,” (1.6) Milton begs, “I…invoke thy aid to my adventurous song” (1.12-13). Does the Muse answer? From Milton’s output—twelve books of verse, one book per apostle, one per tribe of Israel—one may believe so, but where in all of Paradise Lost does the Muse answer the poet’s call?

Perhaps in the line break that transitions the poet from question (“Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?” (1.33)) to answer (“The infernal Serpent; he it was…” (1.34)), but if so, how pregnant that line break must be, for in its womb lay not only the transition from question to answer, but from poet to Muse, from earthly ignorance to divine knowledge, begging the question: would a Muse be so ironic as to answer Milton’s call, or is Milton’s Muse perhaps the foul fiend of whom he sings? The answer sought is not one of reality, but of the quality of sleep had by him who sings with such fervor. Did the poet sleep with righteous conviction or did he doubt the source of his blind man’s vision?

If his sleep is foul, his song is not, and for two books, his Muse-infused pen orchestrates illustrious verse, timeless lines: Hell’s roll-call and the inspiring words of the Archenemy; the depth’s description and demonic debates; Satan’s flight; his spawn, Sin and Death, guarding the gate; the great gulf between Heaven and Hell, where he at last finds, “this pendant World…” (2.1052).

But no Muse by Milton known could segue his song from second part to third; he seeks not the peak of Olympus, but the kingdom of Heaven, the seat of God; the Muses cannot hearken there: “Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt” (3.27). Milton must invoke another:

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born! / … / May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, / and never but in unapproached light / dwelt from eternity - dwelt then in thee, / bright effluence of bright increate! / … / …Celestial Light, / shine inward, and the mind through all her powers / irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence / purge and disperse, that I may see and tell / of things invisible to mortal sight. (3.1-55)

And what does the light show our blind poet? The view from God’s throne: “all the Sanctities of Heaven” (3.60); “on his right / the radiant image of… / His only son” (3.62-64); “On Earth… / our first two parents…” (3.62-63); “Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there” (3.70); and the “past, present, future, he beholds…” (3.78). But then the words, the wisdom of God, oratory divine divinely heard, but by whom? By light? Light possesses not ears, nor reason, principle action of a prehensile mind, and comprehends not the rhetoric of the righteous One. Ignorant illuminations of sights unseen, sure, but the auditory amanuensis of Heaven’s decree? Surely Milton suspected serpentine subterfuge, if only while falling into the delightful paradise of a sightless, soundless sleep; how could he not? Would the mind of such a man fail to appreciate the irony of an unquestioning faith in the words of one formerly mute, the voice of God as told by light sharing its virtues with the voice of Assistance as told by the lisping serpent? Would Milton not be cautious, lest he be ensnared like Eve, and lest he tempt his reader as did she her husband, to whom she reasoned (as reasoning she may): “The Serpent… / hath eaten of the fruit, and is become / … / endued with human voice and human sense…” (9.867-871)? First the voice of a Muse and now the light: is Milton perhaps “in [inspiration] overtrusting” (9.1183)?

Trusting or distrusting, faith or folly, Milton calls out a third time, seeking the milk of poetry from breast of yet another Muse:

Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name / if rightly thou art called, who voice divine / following, above th’ Olympian hill I soar, / above the flight of Pegasean wing! / The meaning, not the name, I call; for thou nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top / of old Olympus dwell’st; but, heavenly- born, / before the hills appeared or fountain flowed, / thou with Eternal Wisdom didst converse, / Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play / in presence of the Almighty Father, pleased / with thy celestial song. Up led by thee, / into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed, / an earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air, / thy tempering. With like safety guided down, / return me to my native element; / lest, from this flying steed unreined… / … / dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall, / erroneous there to wander and forlorn. / Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound / … / More safe I sing with mortal voice… / … / …; yet not alone, while thou visit’st my slumbers nightly, or when Morn / purples the East. Still govern thou my song… (7.1-30).

Urania, Muse of astronomy and astrology, she with her eyes heavenward: is this the Muse one calls for an earthly song - or if not the Muse, then the meaning: what has astronomy or astrology to do with a fall from Heaven? If a ride he seeks, assistance on his earthward-descent, who better than Lucifer to light the way? If Milton beckons not the Muse but the meaning, who is to say that Satan did not answer the call?

And what trickery, what treachery, what tragedy would the treasonous tyrant wrought? What low purpose Milton’s verses serve?

The nostalgic night-dreams of the faith-blind, a mythic wind that blows our vision not forward into the real possibilities of a paradise now-then but back into the always already lost paradisiacal past.

Satan’s victory: the verses of nostalgia.