Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.
On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity is one of Milton’s earliest poems, written when he was only twenty-one, but not widely published until some years later. I think it’s incredibly telling in a way and very prophetic of Milton’s career as a whole. Because Milton takes an incredibly hackneyed subject, the birth of Jesus on Christmas, and does something deeply personal and pretty weird with it. Not that anything is wrong with a traditional poem about Christmas, but we’ve all heard about a thousand of them. Probably not any quite like this though, which features scenes in the underworld and the domains of pagan gods. It’s no wonder that William Blake did illustrations for this poem, as it has some surprisingly striking imagery that has nothing to do with the typical Christmas images we’re all familiar with. Still, it’s definitely simpler than his other works, but it does highlight a talent on the rise. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – one of Milton’s earliest poems is creative and surprising; it’s simple, of course, but Milton brings a personal flair to a tired subject. 3 ½ stars.