thoughtful, or
contemplative, but anxious, full of cares, carking. The rapid
purification of Milton's taste will be best perceived by comparing
_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_ of uncertain date, but written after
1632, with the _Ode on the Nativity_, written 1629. The Ode, notwith-
standing its foretaste of Milton's grandeur, abounds in frigid conceits,
from which the two later pieces are free. The Ode is frosty, as written
in winter, within the four walls of a college chamber. The two idylls
breathe the free air of spring and summer, and of the fields round
Horton. They are thoroughly naturalistic; the choicest expression our
language has yet found of the fresh charm of country life, not as that
life is lived by the peasant, but as it is felt by a young and lettered
student, issuing at early dawn, or at sunset, into the fields from his
chamber and his books. All rural sights and sounds and smells are here
blended in that ineffable combination, which once or twice perhaps in
our lives has saluted our young senses before their perceptions were
blunted by
alcohol, by lust, or ambition, or diluted by the social
distractions of great cities.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46