WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: At a Solemn Music

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Today, Erika Kyba reads John Milton's "At a Solemn Music," which extols the sanctifying power of song.

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading John Milton's At a Solem Music. This is a poem that celebrates praise and worship of God, especially done through song, as a means of sanctification. This poem begins with a very curious invocation of the muse. Milton invokes the concepts of voice and verse and asks them to wed their divine sounds and breathe new sense into what is dead.

However, he refers to voice and verse as a pair of sirens. Sirens in mythology were not seen as blessed but rather as deadly. Their song took control of a man's will and lured him to his death. And indeed, this was actually the basis for a fear of music itself

that many Puritans had in Milton's day. They viewed it as something from the devil because it moved people out of their senses into an ecstasy. Milton, however, is about to reclaim the power of music in this poem, starting by baptizing serenic imagery. The poet goes on to portray music as an important and even holy part of human nature. He imagines that Adam and Eve once made fair music to God before sin introduced discord into the great song of creation. Milton plays a lot with sound-related words to describe the effect of sin. For example, he calls sin disproportioned. Now, proportions are an important part of musical theory, relating tones and intervals to

create harmonious sounds. When sin is introduced, Milton says that it jars against nature's chime, which makes sense if you think about it. Before the fall, human nature was perfectly ordered, with its desires all in right proportion. But after the fall, things are taken out of that proportion. Sin leads us to desire things we should not, or to desire the right things in the wrong way, or to desire them far more than we should. The result is that discord is introduced into the great song of human nature. However, Milton does not believe

that our original harmonious state is entirely out of reach. The entire poem enjoins the world to take up that song of praise again, to renew it, to use the poet's own words. He believes that we can keep tune with heaven through the praise of God. Reaching this happy state on a fallen earth then

is only a precursor to the joy of God's new heaven and new earth when we are finally united to God's celestial consort to live with him and sing endlessly. With all that said, let's dive in. Add a solemn music by John Milton. Blessed pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy, sphere-born harmonious sisters, voice and verse. Wed your divine sounds and mixed power employ dead things with in-breathed sense able to pierce,

and to our high-raised fantasy present that undisturbed song of pure content. I, sung before the sapphire-colored throne, to him that sits thereon with saintly shout and solemn Jubilee, where the bright seraphim in a burning row their loud, uplifted angel trumpets blow, and the cherubic host and thousand choirs touch their immortal harps of golden wires, with those just spirits that wear victorious palms. Hymns devout and holy psalms sing everlastingly, that we on earth with undiscording voice may rightly answer that melodious noise, we did, till disproportioned

sin jarred against nature's chime, and with harsh din broke the fair music that all creatures made to their great lord, whose love their motions swayed in perfect diapason, whilst they stood in first obedience, and their state of good. Oh, may we soon again renew that song, and keep in tune with heaven,

till God ere long to his celestial consort us unite, to live with him, and sing an endless morn of light. You've been listening to the poetry fix with Erica Kaiba. If you enjoyed this episode, consider following The Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to thepoetryfix at gmail.com. Join me next week and we'll be reading

John Dunn's Holy Sonnet 10.