The name of John Milton stands preeminent in the Puritan literature of this divided age, representing both its prose and its poetry, lyric and epic. In influence upon the lyric poets following him he was second only to Spenser. Tennyson calls him the "God-gifted organ-voice of England," while Longfellow compares his music to that of the sea:

". . . . . in majestic cadence rise and fall
The mighty undulations of thy song,
O sightless bard."

Milton was born in Cheapside. His father was a scrivener (public writer) skilled in music. The boy early showed literary talent: "My father destined me from a child to the pursuits of literature; and from twelve years of age, I hardly ever left my studies, or went to bed before midnight." On leaving Cambridge in 1632 he spent six years in the country at Horton, Buckinghamshire, studying and producing most of his lyric poetry: "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," remarkable for their sustained lyric grace; Comus, half masque, half lyrical drama; and "Lycidas," the first of the three or four great elegies, including Shelley's "Adonais" and Tennyson's In Memoriam, which enrich our literature. He then traveled on the Continent for two years, welcomed as a scholar by many famous people.

Hearing of civil strife in England, he returned ("I thought it base to be traveling for amusement abroad while my fellow citizens were fighting for liberty at home"), and before long he was writing for the Puritan cause. His work at this time was almost entirely prose (see p. 283). In spite of approaching blindness (see sonnets,

p. 258, 259) he served through the Protectorate. After the Restoration forced him into retirement he lived out his life in seclusion, dictating to his daughters his great epic poems, Paradise Lost, 1667, Paradise Regained, and the stern scriptural drama, Samson Agonistes, 1671.

Milton's few sonnets bridge the gap of twenty years between his two chief poetic periods, the lyric and the epic. In both lyric and epic he is a master of musical harmony and rhythm. In the former the dominant quality is richness; in the latter, it is sublimity. In his epic verse, splendor of diction, stateliness of style, vast sweep of imagination, and exaltation of mood, form a fit accompaniment to his great purpose announced in Paradise Lost-"to justify the ways of God to man."

Milton's Poetical Works, edited by D. Masson, 3 volumes, are in the Cambridge edition; D. Masson's Life of John Milton, 6 volumes, is authoritative; for more concise material consult lives by R. Garnett (GW); M. Pattison (EML); and Masterman's Age of Milton; early essays by Addison, The Spectator, 262, 265; Johnson, Macaulay, Carlyle; later by Arnold, Dowden, Masson, Woodberry, etc.; R. S. Stevenson, "Milton and the Puritans," No. Am. 214:825-32, a good article; G. Sampson, "Macaulay and Milton," Edin R. 242:165-78; A. H. M. Sime, "Milton and Music," Contemp. 115:337-40.

4

1632

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes and shrieks and sights unholy!

Find out some uncouth 5 cell,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 10 But come, thou Goddess fair and free,

In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,

7

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sager 8 sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,

Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying,

There on beds of violets blue

The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free.
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come 13 in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweet-briar or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine; 14
While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin;
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before.

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill;
Sometime walking, not unseen,

By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,

The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the plowman, near at hand,

Whistles o'er the furrowed land,

Russet lawns and fallows 17 gray,

30

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure 18 of neighboring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis 19 met
Are at their savory dinner set

Of herbs and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis 19 dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis 19 to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,

13 i.e., arise and go (to the

window)

14 honeysuckle

15 decked

17 unti'led land

18

center of observation

19 common names of rus

tics in pastoral poetry