Maeonides

“Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year seasons return, but not to me returns day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; but cloud instead, and ever-during dark surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair presented with a universal blank of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd, and wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much the rather thou celestial light shine inward, and the mind through all her powers irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence purge and disperse, that I may see and tell of things invisible to mortal sight. [Context: Milton comparing his blindness to that of Maeonides]”