To the Lady Margaret Ley
John Milton · 1645
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. John Milton. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
Daughter to that good earl, once President
Of England's council and her treasury,
Who lived in both, unstain'd with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content.
Till the sad breaking of that parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronia, fatal to liberty,
Kill'd with report that old man eloquent;--
Though later born than to have known the days
Wherein your father flourish'd, yet by you,
Madam, methinks I see him living yet;
So well your words his noble virtues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, honour'd Margaret.