"Things invisible to see..."

John Donne (1572-1631)

After a miniature by Isaac Oliver (1616?)

(Image from Wikipedia)

In Paradise Lost 3.1-55, Milton addresses the divine light and -- after lamenting his own physical blindness -- asks to receive inward, spiritual eyes:

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. (PL 3.51-55)

Lines 54-55, "that I may see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight," recall -- at least for me -- lines 10-11 of John Donne's posthumously published poem "Song" (1633), which read: "If thou be'st born to strange sights, / Things invisible to see."

Was Milton remembering Donne? Let's look:

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

Well, we do have the devil and a beautiful, unfaithful woman appearing in both poems, and Milton's Paradise Lost does go and catch that falling star Lucifer ... among other 'impossible tasks' imposed by true love, both sacred and profane.

So ... was Milton alluding to lines 10-11 of Donne's "Song" in Paradise Lost 3.54-55?

Maybe, maybe not.