For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill.
Here is the sweet mournfulness of the Spenserian time, upon whose joys
Death is the only intruder. Pass onward a little, and you are in presence
of the tremendous
Two-handed engine at the door,
the terror of which is enhanced by its obscurity. We are very sure
that the avenger is there, though we know not who he is. In these
thirty lines we have the preluding mutterings of the storm which was
to sweep away mask and revel and song, to inhibit the drama, and
suppress poetry. In the earlier poems Milton's muse has sung in the
tones of the age that is passing away; the poet is, except in his
austere chastity, a cavalier. Though even in _L'Allegro_ Dr. Johnson
truly detects "some melancholy in his mirth." In _Lycidas_, for a
moment, the tones of both ages, the past and the coming, are combined,
and then Milton leaves behind him for ever the golden age, and one
half of his poetic genius. He never fulfilled the promise with which
_Lycidas_ concludes, "Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new."
CHAPTER III.
JOURNEY TO ITALY.
Before 1632 Milton had begun to learn Italian.
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