“I... Steer Right Onward” 1654–1658great love poems in the language, displaying what is not elsewhere evident: Milton’s
capacity to love a woman deeply and respond to her love.
In this Petrarchan sonnet the first twelve lines present the dream–vision, and the
quasi-Shakespearean sonnet structure intensifies the emotion when the turn finally
comes in the last two lines:
Mee thought I saw my late espoused saint
brought to me like Alcestis from the grave
whom Joves great son to her glad husband gave
rescu’d from death by force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom washt from spot of childe-bed taint
purification in the old law did save,
and such, as yet once more I trust to have
full sight of her in heaven without restraint,
came vested all in white, pure as her minde:
her face was vaild, yet to my fancied sight,
love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin’d
soe clear, as in no face with more delight.
But o as to imbrace me she enclin’d,
I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night.^154The opening line introduces ambiguities around “late” – recently wed, recently
deceased. “Saint” identifies the visionary lady with the saved in heaven and pre-
pares for the emphasis on her goodness. The first quatrain presents a classical ana-
logue from Euripides’ Alcestis: she comes, like Alcestis brought back to her husband
Admetus from the possession of Death in the underworld, veiled, pale, and faint,
and in need of purification because of her consecration to the nether gods.^155 The
second segment (five lines) presents an Old Testament analogue: the vision appears
like one who has fulfilled the law in Leviticus 12:2–5 for purifying the uncleanness
associated with childbirth: 40 days for a male child, 80 for a female. But in her case
the white garments symbolize, not bodily purification, classical or Judaic, but the
purity of mind that marks her as one saved by grace under the New Law.^156 That
purity allows the Miltonic speaker to expect the “full sight” of her in heaven that
his blind eyes never enjoyed on earth. The emphasis on purity gains etymological
force from Katherine’s name in Greek, katharos, pure. The next three lines project
the mental picture, the “fancied sight” the dream allowed, in which Katherine’s
essential qualities of “love, sweetness, goodness” shone “soe clear” through the
veil. The final two lines, arguably the most poignant in all Milton’s poetry, under-
score profound ironies: night and sleep allowed a partial escape in vision from
sightlessness and the agony of lost love; the new day brings back the dark night of
absence, blindness, grief, and desolation.