In the Introduction to her study on Milton's Epics and the Book of Psalms, Mary Ann Radzinowicz states (almost as an aside) that the poet's first great work, the Nativity Ode, was “a poem not only based on Luke's New Testament Psalms but composed of numerous topoi from the Psalms set by the Book of Common Prayer to be read at Christmastime” (ix). Although she does not explore this claim in detail, there are good reasons to think that at least two of the three Morning Prayer Psalms appointed for Christmas Day—Psalms 19 and 85—may have influenced the Ode. Scholars generally acknowledge an allusion to Psalm 85.10 in Stanza 15 (see Milton, OCW 3: 364). Mother M. Christopher Pecheux's study of sun and light imagery in the Ode discerns multiple references to Psalm 19 as well. And M. J. Doherty has drawn on the liturgical readings for both Christmas and Epiphany to explicate Milton's poem. Curiously, however, none of these scholars attends closely to the original biblical context for the images Milton borrows. Although he does allude to Psalms 19 and 85, in both cases the poet revises and reinterprets psalmic imagery in ways that, at least on the surface, create tensions between the Ode and the Psalms themselves. I argue that these apparent tensions are deliberate: rather than merely borrowing language or images from the Psalms assigned for Christmas morning, Milton repurposes and interprets them in support of his poem's theological agenda. Moreover, the same interpretive moves reappear in the poet's metrical rendition of Psalm 85 some years later, revealing a continuity to his engagement with this biblical text, even under profoundly different circumstances.1 A poem borrowing from the official Prayer Book's Christmas Psalms might surprise those who are mindful of the mature Milton's Dissenter status; but we should take this suggestion seriously. While the poem was not published until 1645, the poet indicated a much earlier date of composition in his title: “On the morning of Christs Nativity. Compos'd 1629.”2 Earlier in 1629, Milton had subscribed to a Latin statement “that the Book of Common Prayer … contained in it nothing contrary to the Word of God, and that it may lawfully so be used” (Campbell and Corns 43; see Lewalski, The Life of John Milton 34). Indeed, at the age of twenty-one, the young poet was even considering the possibility of ordination in the Church of England (Pecheux 319). He may well have participated in Morning Prayer for Christmas that year. Of course, as Pecheux reminds us, the texts he alludes to were an established part of traditional Christian thought and imagery related to Christ's birth, so they might come to mind for Milton even if he had not encountered them that particular morning. But if he did, in fact, say the Daily Office that morning, the Psalms would catch his attention. Ordinarily, the Psalter was read straight through at Morning and Evening Prayer, moving from beginning to end in a thirty-day cycle. Christmas was one of only six days in the church year when Milton's Book of Common Prayer assigned Psalms that broke that pattern. Christmas was also, consequently, one of only six days in the year when the assigned Psalms were not contiguous, and thus required the reader to flip pages to another part of the Psalter between each reading. It is not hard to imagine such a divergence from the usual pattern lodging in a young man's memory. The Nativity Ode's placement in Milton's Poems of 1645 further underscores its relationship to Psalms on the one hand and to the ritual patterns of the church year on the other. In his published volume, he follows up the Ode with paraphrases of Psalms 114 and 136, emphasizing the biblical connection. But these, in turn, are followed by additional early poems about major occasions in the liturgical calendar, “The Passion” and “Upon the Circumcision,” with a meditation “On Time” between the two. Each of these poems includes verbal links and echoes of the Ode. The arrangement and interrelationship of these poems thus encourage us to read the Ode itself as a work occurring at the poetic intersection of biblical-liturgical and specifically psalmic themes and language.3 The first Psalm appointed for Christmas morning—and the first to find an echo in the Nativity Ode—is Psalm 19. According to Radzinowicz, this biblical passage belongs on a short list of Psalms that were “of particular interest” to Milton throughout his life (Milton's Epics 200). The Psalm opens with a proclamation of divine revelation through nature, climaxing with an image of the sun: “In them [the heavens] hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun: which cometh forth as a Bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoyceth as a Giant to run his course. It goeth forth from the uttermost part of the Heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof” (Ps. 19.5–6). Pecheux finds hints of this imagery in the second stanza of the Ode's proem, where the one who “sit[s] the midst of Trinal Unity,” the “Light unsufferable, / And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,” departs from “the Courts of everlasting Day” (ll. 11, 8–9, 13; see Pecheux 325). The sun emerging like “a Bridegroom out of his chamber” or “tabernacle” is suggested more clearly at the end of the hymn proper, “when the Sun in bed, / Curtain'd with cloudy red, / Pillows his chin upon an Orient wave” (ll. 229–31). These lines immediately follow a declaration of the newborn child's power to control the forces of evil, recalling the story of the infant Hercules defeating the serpent (Typhon's “snaky twine” [l. 226], but also perhaps the “Giant” or strong man of Psalm 19.5 [see Pecheux 332]).4 It is even possible, as Pecheux further suggests, to associate line 138’s language of sin “melt[ing]” with “there is nothing hid from the heat thereof” (327). These connections become more problematic, however, when we realize that, especially in the early parts of the Ode, the sun does not run across the heavens. On the contrary, it is notable chiefly for its absence.5 At one level this is not hard to explain. Tradition says that Christ was born at night. Moreover, Christmas occurs near the winter solstice, when the sun is physically absent for long hours.6 And multiple scholars point out that the sun's failure to rise is part of a larger pattern within the poem, in which time itself seems to stand still to behold the miracle in what Diane McColley calls “a statis of amazement” (21; see Evans 5). But this insistent absence nevertheless complicates the poem's relationship to Psalm 19. Worse yet, Milton's clearest echo of the Psalm's bridegroom imagery does not refer to Christ at all, but to the absent sun: “It was no season then for her [Nature] / To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour” (ll. 35–36). These lines—which Pecheux does not mention—seem to set up a troubling association with more pagan mythological imagery, an association that becomes explicit later in the poem, when the first of the pagan deities to be driven forth by the arrival of the Christ-child is Apollo, a sun god (l. 176).7 Nearly all the vanquished gods are described in language associated somehow with night or darkness (see Moseley 109; Pecheux 331), by contrast with the divine infant, a pattern that reaches its climax when “[t]he rayes of Bethlehem blind” the “dusky eyn” of Osiris (l. 223). But this link between Christ and sun-imagery also serves once again to emphasize a radical dissimilarity between the newborn child and the natural sun that withdraws as he approaches. Ring out ye Chrystall sphears, Once bless our human ears, (If ye have power to touch our senses so) And let your silver chime Move in melodious time, And let the Base of Heav'ns deep Organ blow, And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to th’ Angelike symphony. But Milton goes on to flip Psalm 19.3–4 in the latter part of the poem. The Psalmist writes, “There is neither speech, nor language: but their voices are heard among them. Their sound is gone out into all lands.” In the poem, however, this wordlessness which is nevertheless mysteriously “heard” does not describe divine revelation through natural creation, as in the Psalm, but rather the false gods who oppose and occlude such revelation. “There is neither speech nor language” finds its answer in “The Oracles are dumm, / No voice or hideous humm / Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving” (ll. 173–75). Yet the earth also echoes with Apollo's “hollow shriek,” the “voice of weeping heard, and loud lament,” the “moan with midnight plaint,” “A drear, and dying sound” (ll. 178, 183, 191, 193). Moreover, the comprehensive geography (st. 20) and the many realms represented by this litany of deities indicate that, as Psalm 19.4 would have it, “[t]heir sound” has indeed “gone out into all lands.” Once again, we see the Psalm's language used straightforwardly in the Ode but also inverted. What is Milton doing here? I propose a twofold answer. First, while he does invoke the Psalm's language of divine revelation through nature, the poet also believes that creation needs to be cleansed. Indeed, this is why Christ has come. In the final verses of Psalm 19, the Psalmist prays: “Who can tell how oft he offendeth: O cleanse thou me from my secret faults. Keep thy servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me.” When the divine infant puts an end to the dominion of false gods, he answers this prayer on behalf of the created order as a whole. This hint toward the Psalm's conclusion suggests that we should be more attentive to ways that Psalm 19 may be in the background for the Nativity Ode, even when it is not explicitly invoked. Radzinowicz notes that Psalm 19 is “intricate in chiastic arrangements” (Milton's Epics 202); most obviously, its two halves form a diptych presenting God's twofold self-revelation, in the natural created order and in the biblical law. In light of this mirror-like structure, Milton's allusions to the baby in the manger and the sun-as-bridegroom notably appear in the first stanza and again in the final two stanzas of the hymn proper, creating a kind of chiastic frame for his own poem.8 The patterns of the Psalm may have influenced his arrangement of the Ode, in addition to Psalm 19’s later verses standing behind the “cleansing” of the Ode's final movement. The Sun himself with-held his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferiour flame, The new-enlighten'd world no more should need; He saw a greater Sun appear. Then his bright Throne, or burning Axletree could bear. Here Christ is portrayed as displacing the sun, whose role has been fulfilled.9 This is the beginning of his “race” through the heavens. As Pecheux rightly remarks (317), these lines probably include an allusion to Isaiah 60, one of the readings assigned for Christmas Eve: “The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory” (19, Authorized Version). This eschatological promise helps explain why the Ode's only explicit reference to the law—the subject of the second part of Psalm 19—makes the giving of it to Moses on mount Sinai a symbol of the final judgment (see st. 17). Of course, the association of law primarily with exposure and judgment of sin might be consistent with reformed theology more generally.10 But its reorientation toward the eschaton is a reminder that this poem is about much more than just the birth of Christ; it encompasses the entire work of Christ, from Incarnation to Judgment Day. At this point the Ode's careful insistence that the sun has not yet risen, but is being displaced by a greater light, may have yet another horizon implicitly in view, in addition to the eschaton—namely, the Resurrection. Recall the description of that climactic event in Paradise Lost: “ere the third dawning light / Return, the Stars of Morn shall see him rise / Out of his grave, fresh as the dawning light” (12.421–23). Through careful use of sun and light imagery, Milton may already be writing the pre-dawn triumph of the Resurrection into his nativity hymn's narrative of Christ's birth. He may be pointing ahead to that moment, as well as the moment of Christ's return, and setting creation in contrast with a new creation that begins to arrive in this child's birth. To think her part was don, And that her raign had here its last fulfilling; She knew such harmony alone. Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union. The poem thus invokes Psalm 19 in a multifaceted way, both embracing and inverting its language, to show how the Christ child supersedes but also purifies, completes, and fulfills earlier revelations. In McColley's words, “rather than dichotomizing the natural and the spiritual, as at first appears, the young Milton shows how they can be drawn together in peace” (23). Only something beyond the created order itself can “hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union” (l. 108). Yea Truth, and Justice then. Will down return to men, Orb'd in a Rain-bow; and like glories wearing. Mercy will sit between,11 Thron'd in Celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing. . . . (141–46) Here, psalmic language allows Milton to underscore the union of heaven and earth with particular power. Once again, however, he has revised the text even as he borrows from it. First, and most obviously, one of the four figures from Psalm 85.10 is missing: “Peace” is named nowhere in this stanza. Since the source of these figures was so widely known, the omission must be deliberate; the only question is what Milton intends to accomplish by it. We can begin to discern a possible reason if we notice, as Røstvig argues, that “Truth, Justice, and Mercy” represent “an image of the Trinity,” or at least that they mirror the Trinity (70). The poet may intend his readers to recognize the significance of moving from four to three (see Davies 96); these are important numbers for the poem as a whole, with its four-stanza proem preceding a twenty-seven stanza hymn. The number of the triune God emerging from the number of the world may once again point toward the Incarnation as the site of divine revelation being made manifest in terms of the created order. But he [to make Nature's] fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyd Peace, She crown'd with Olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphear His ready Harbinger With Turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, And waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes a universall Peace through Sea and Land. Of course, as Milton knows, peace also makes a separate, earlier appearance in Psalm 85 verse 8; that text itself may have suggested a way to emphasize Christ as peace-bringer, an important theme in the Ode. But a close reading also reveals a careful connection drawn between these stanzas. The combination of “Olive green” and “Turtle wing” in stanza 3 suggests the dove bearing back an olive branch at the end of the Noah story in Genesis (see Doherty 25). But in stanza 15, the named figures are “Orb'd in a Rain-bow,” a second reminiscence of that same story.12 Though she goes unnamed, Peace is made present in stanza 15 through this linked covenantal image. Moreover, just as Peace is “sent down” and comes “softly sliding / Down” (ll. 46–48, emphasis added), so the movement “down” of the other three figures is doubled in stanza 15 (ll. 142, 146).13 Similarly, Pecheaux suggests that the kissing of wind and waters in stanza 5 may subtly hint at the “kiss” between righteousness and peace in Psalm 85.10 (ll. 64–65; Pecheux 325). And here we discover a doubled mention of Christ as peace-bringer, recalling the doubled introduction of Peace as a character in lines 46 and 52: “peacefull was the night / Wherin the Prince of light / His raign of peace upon the earth began” (ll. 61-63). The apparent omission of Peace from stanza 15 thus invites us to look more closely and discover the delicate intertextual connections and multiplicity of symbolic meanings that Milton has woven into his poem. This close attention to the Ode's rearrangement of the four personified characters from Psalm 85.10 reveals a second revision, as well: Milton has changed the tenses. The Psalm reads, “Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other”; but in the poem, this becomes “Truth, and Justice then / Will down return to men” (emphasis added). Admittedly, verb-tense is a profoundly complex issue in the Ode (see Burrow 61 for a succinct summary), and in the Hebrew Bible as well. But it seems particularly odd to purge away a present-tense aspect from Psalm 85 in the context of Christmas, when everything—especially in a possibly liturgical setting—seems to emphasize the now. Milton's subtle shift becomes suddenly and shockingly obvious when the next stanza flatly denies any present-tense completion of these hopes: “But wisest fate says no, / This must not yet be so” (ll. 149–50). Yet, once again, a closer look reveals that Milton's apparent revision is actually engaging with and uncovering an element of the Psalm itself. Psalm 85.10’s verbs may be in the perfective present tense, but verse 11, which reintroduces the characters of truth and righteousness (or justice), moves toward a future sense. What has already happened is also yet to happen. And indeed, while the overall tone of the Psalm seems to emphasize a realized work of salvation, like many Psalms it actually demonstrates a movement back and forth between present praise and future hope. Verses 3–4 capture this contrast—and the complexity of verb tense usage in Hebrew—most clearly: “Thou hast taken away all thy displeasure: and turned thy self from thy wrathful indignation. Turn us then, O God our Saviour: and let thine anger cease from us.”14 What Milton has done is simultaneously to collapse and to expand this gap between established perfective-tense and expected future-tense realities. By poetically writing the future tense over the Psalm's present, he combines them; but at the same time, he interprets the Psalm as describing not just the Nativity—which a Christmas morning encounter with its present-tense language would seem to suggest—but also, perhaps even primarily, the eschaton. He asserts the established character of Christ's accomplishment, while also opening up space between its initiation and completion—a historical space slipped into the interstices of the poem's timeless moment. And within that space he reasserts Christ's simultaneously historic and extra-temporal victory, slowly shifting the balance of his verb-forms back toward the present tense as he reaches the poem's end (according to Belsey 3; see Hampton 48). This reading is confirmed in an unexpected way when we see the same emphases revisited in Milton's translation of Psalm 85, just three years after the Ode's 1645 publication. The translation is, in many respects, unexceptional; it uses the common meter customary in Psalm-books of the period. Indeed, William B. Hunter argues that, despite Milton's claim to be translating directly from the Hebrew, these texts mostly borrow from and adapt previous metrical versions rather than presenting new, distinctive work. However, Hunter includes the bulk of Psalm 85 among those verses for which his detailed search did not find parallels in earlier versions (488). Moreover, the final four verses of this particular Psalm include an unusual number of phrases printed in italics, Milton's typographical signal that he has elaborated on the Hebrew. These verses are thus particularly likely to reflect the poet's own interpretation of the Psalm. And while even a metrical rendering must necessarily steer closer to the Hebrew text than an allusive Nativity poem, careful analysis indicates important parallels to the Ode's use of this Psalm. The next points of correspondence appear in Milton's translation of verses 10–11: Mercy and Truth that long were missed. Now joyfully are met. Sweet Peace and Righteousness have kiss'd. And hand in hand are set. Truth from the earth like to a flowr. Shall bud and blossom then, And Justice from her heavenly bowr. Look down on mortal men. The capitalization of the four figures' names may remind us of their personification in what scholars have sometimes called the “masque” of stanza 15 in the Ode. Here Coverdale translates “righteousness” as “justice,” as in the Ode. Of interest as well is the addition at the end of verse 10: “And hand in hand are set.” In the Nativity Ode, Milton uses this verse to emphasize the union of heaven and earth, asserted through the angelic harmonies and revealed ultimately in the incarnate Son. Here he further emphasizes difference brought into unity, this time by elaborating on the Psalm's own relational language. In Paradise Lost, holding hands is a frequently reiterated and powerful symbol of Adam and Eve's union. This metrical translation of Psalm 85 foreshadows that symbolic significance by using the same language to show the power of the restoration and reunification that this Psalm portrays.15 Before him Righteousness shall go His Royal Harbinger, Then will he come, and not be slow His footsteps cannot err. Righteousness as “His Royal Harbinger” may remind us of Peace as “His ready Harbinger” in the Ode (49). But most significant is the reworking of the final two lines. The Hebrew, according to Milton's own authorial note, is simply “He will set his steps to the way.” Milton's revision places this promise more clearly in the future but simultaneously gives the sense that it is immediately impending. And the final line's invitation to confident trust marks a return to the present moment, like the quiet hush of the sleeping child surrounded by “Bright-harnest Angels … in order serviceable” with which the Ode closes (l. 244). Milton's rendition of Psalms 80–88 arose in a context of great tumult and civil war, at a time when he might have been looking for ways to reassert both hope for the future and confidence in divine action in the present (see Collette); but as John K. Hale rightly reminds us, these translations are more than merely a reaction to circumstances. They also represent Milton's own poetic, contemplative, and theological engagement with the biblical texts (see Hale 57–61). What the present study reveals is that, at least in the case of Psalm 85, the poet's metrical meditations on the text continued an interpretive pattern already laid down almost twenty years earlier. When he published his Poems in 1645, Milton opened the volume with the Nativity Ode, immediately followed by his youthful renderings of Psalms 114 and 136; but, as we have seen, the Nativity Ode itself also presents interpretations of its psalmic intertexts. Responding to and rewriting Psalm 19, it explores the ways that the revelation of Christ's Incarnation at once challenges, cleanses, and completes the natural created order. And it subtly revises Psalm 85 to emphasize Christ's role as peace-bringer, to describe the union of divine and created realities, and to draw out temporal complexities implicit in the Psalm itself through an eschatological reading. While Milton's perspective on Prayer Books may have changed in ensuing years, the poetic and interpretive engagement with Scripture that continues to recur in his later work is already present in his first great poem. The Nativity Ode is an audacious work for a multitude of reasons, but its bold and creative reworking of Psalms 19 and 85 must surely be ranked among them. Ultimately, this intertextual use of biblical poetry supports the young poet's aspirations to join his own voice to the heavenly choir—and perhaps to the choir of biblical writers, as well. Revising Psalms in order to interpret them, Milton seeks to offer a new inspired song in praise of the one he calls “the Son of Heav'ns eternal King” (2). The Heavens declare the glory of God: and the Firmament sheweth his handy-work. One day telleth another: and one night certifieth another. There is neither speech, nor language: but their voices are heard among them. Their sound is gone out into all lands: and their words into the ends of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun: which cometh forth as a Bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoyceth as a Giant to run his course. It goeth forth from the uttermost part of the Heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the Lord is an undefiled law, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, and giveth wisdom unto the simple. The statues of the Lord are right, and rejoyce the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, and giveth light unto the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, and endureth for ever: the judgements of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey, and the honey-comb. Moreover by them is thy Servant taught: and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can tell how oft he offendeth: O cleanse thou me from my secret faults. Keep thy servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me: so shall I be undefiled, and innocent from the great offence. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart: be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord: my strength and my redeemer. Lord, thou art become gracious unto thy land: thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the offence of thy people: and covered all their sins. Thou hast taken away all thy displeasure: and turned thy self from thy wrathful indignation. Turn us then, O God our Saviour: and let thine anger cease from us. Wilt thou be displeased at us for ever: and wilt thou stretch out thy wrath from one generation to another? Wilt thou not turn again and quicken us: that thy people may rejoyce in thee? Shew us thy mercy, O Lord: and grant us thy salvation. I will hearken what the Lord God will say concerning me: for he shall speak peace unto his people, and to his saints, that they turn not again. For his salvation is nigh them that fear him: that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall flourish out of the earth: and righteousness hath looked down from heaven. Yea, the Lord shall shew loving kindness: and our land shall give her increase. Righteousness shall go before him: and he shall direct his going in the way.