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Programme Note

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Darkness Visible interlaces two texts born of the Commonwealth of England (1649-1660). John Milton, who had been in the service of the Parliamentary cause, and Henry Vaughan, a staunch Royalist, find common ground in their descriptions of a post-Restoration underworld.

Tarik O’Regan
New York, July 2008


Text

…yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell…

Paradise Lost, Book I
John Milton (1608-1674)


A nest of nights, a gloomy sphere,
Where shadows thicken, and the cloud
Sits on the sun’s brow all the year,
And nothing moves without a shroud.

Death: A Dialogue
from Silex Scintillans, Part I
Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)


…yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible.

Paradise Lost