On the Morning of Christs Nativity focuses on the Incarnation, Lycidas Essay

On the Morning of Christs Nativity focuses on the Incarnation, Lycidas on the Resurrection, but both treat of redemptive divine power. How does Miltons u - Essay Example Though the first poem, â€Å"On the morning of Christ’s Nativity,† deals primarily with the temporal aspect of Christ in the manger and the spectacle of such an event, Milton breaks through the constraints of time and accesses scenes of new life from diverse eras in order to feed the situation with its due amount of reverence. With the second poem, â€Å"Lycidas,† Milton does something similar, in that he treats the death of the mortal with such an eternal quality that it highlights the new and eternal life that is granted each human by the Christian doctrine to which he subscribed. In the poem that focuses on the birth of Christ, Milton effects a slight deviation of emphasis when he writes of the morning, rather than the night of Christ’s birth. The action has its desired effect, as morning is necessarily brings accompanied by the images of newness and life. The idea of Christ’s bringing redemption â€Å"from above† (1.4) dovetails with the image of the morning, as this new day or new life might be considered a gift from the rising sun, which issues its light from above. However, the comparison of the sun to Christ exists only in incipience here; later it becomes more obvious in the depiction of the sun recoiling in deference to the greater light of One who gives a greater life (VII.79-84). The idea of the Incarnation is present not just in the mention of Christ’s birth but in the treatment of the things surrounding it. Christ is named â€Å"that Light unsufferable† and is depicted as shedding the cover of his glorious environs; but being light, He penetrates and animates â€Å"a darksome house of mortal Clay† (II.14). This is a direct reference to the Incarnation, but it also calls forth the idea of the beginning of time and of all life, where God came down and animated not just the earth’s verdant cover, but the earth itself by blowing his breath into the clay and giving life to man. The image of death vanquished is also utilised as a method of