an his _Paradise Regained_. In 1671 appeared his
last important work, _Samson Agonistes_, the most powerful dramatic poem on
the Greek model which our language possesses. The picture of Israel's
mighty champion, blind, alone, afflicted by thoughtless enemies but
preserving a noble ideal to the end, is a fitting close to the life work of
the poet himself. For years he was silent, dreaming who shall say what
dreams in his darkness, and saying cheerfully to his friends, "Still guides
the heavenly vision." He died peacefully in 1674, the most sublime and the
most lonely figure in our literature.

MILTON'S EARLY POETRY.[166] In his early work Milton appears as the
inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature, and his first
work, the ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," approaches the
high-water mark of lyric poetry in England. In the next six years, from
1631 to 1637, he wrote but little, scarcely more than two thousand lines,
but these are among the most exquisite and the most perfectly finished in
our language.

"L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso" are twin poems, containing many lines and
short descriptive passages which linger in the mind like strains of music,
and which are known and loved wherever English is spoken. "L'Allegro" (the
joyous or happy man) is like an excursion into the English fields at
sunrise. The air is sweet; birds are singing; a multitude of sights,
sounds, fragrances, fill all the senses; and to this appeal of nature the
soul of man responds by being happy, seeing in every flower and hearing in
every harmony some exquisite symbol of human life. "Il Penseroso" takes us
over the same ground at twilight and at moonrise. The air is still fresh
and fragrant; the symbolism is, if possible, more tenderly beautiful than
before; but the gay mood is gone, though its memory lingers in the
afterglow of the sunset. A quiet thoughtfulness takes the place of the
pure, joyous sensation of the morning, a thoughtfulness which is not sad,
though like all quiet moods it is akin to sadness, and which sounds the
deeps of human emotion in the presence of nature. To quote scattered lines
of either poem is to do injustice to both. They should be read in their
entirety the same day, one at morning, the other at eventide, if one is to
appreciate their beauty and suggestiveness.

The "Masque of Comus" is in many respects the most perfect of Milton's
poems. It was written in 1634 to be performed at Ludlow Castle be