Global InformationMethought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint information
Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-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 mind;
Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But Oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd,
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.
"Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint" is the first line of a sonnet by the English poet John Milton, typically designated as Sonnet XXIII and thus referred to by scholars. The poem recounts a dream vision in which the speaker saw his wife return to him (as the dead Alcestis appeared to her husband Admetus), only to see her disappear again as day comes. There is considerable discussion among scholars as to which of his first two wives Milton could refer to. Samuel Johnson, in the Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, suggests his second wife, Katherine Woodcock, and comments that "her husband honoured her memory with a poor sonnet".[1]
- ^ Johnson I.77.