94 The Future Poetry
and yet still sustained by the greatness of the divine principle
from which it was born, even when it has lost oneness with it
and faces it with dissonance and defiance. If the rest of the epic
had been equal to its opening books, there would have been no
greater poem, few as great in literature.
But here too the total performance failed and fell below
the promise.Paradise Lostcompels our admiration throughout
by its greatness of style and rhythm, but as a whole, in spite
of its mighty opening, its whole substance as distinct from its
more magnificent or striking parts has failed to enter victoriously
either into the mind or into the heart of the world; much of
it has not lodged itself deeply in its imagination or enriched
sovereignly the acquired stock of its more intimate poetical
thought and experience. But the poem that does neither of these
things, however noble its powers of language and rhythm, has
missed its destiny. The reason is not to be found in the disparity
between Milton’s professed aim, which was to justify the ways
of God to man, and the intellectual means available to him for
fulfilling his purpose. The theology of the Puritan religion was a
poor enough aid for so ambitious a purpose; but the Scriptural
legend treated was poetically sufficient if only it had received
throughout a deeper interpretation. Dante’s theology had the
advantage of the richness of import and spiritual experience of
mediaeval Catholicism, but intellectually for so deep and vast a
purpose it was not any more satisfying or durable. Still through
his primitive symbols Dante has seen and has revealed things
which make his work throughout poetically and creatively great
and sufficient up to a certain high, if narrow level. It is here that
Milton failed altogether. Nor is the failure mainly intellectual; it
is of a more radical kind. It is true that he had not an original
intellect; his mind was scholastic and traditional to a point that
discouraged any free thinking power; but he had an original soul
and personality and the vision of a poet. It is not the province
of poetry to justify intellectually the ways of God to man; what
it can do, is to reveal them: but just here is the point of failure.
Milton has seen Satan and Death and Sin and Hell and Chaos;
there is a scriptural greatness in his account of these things. But