Ring to the roar of an angel onset.
The stanzas on the flight of the ancient classic deities, even the genius of "haunted spring and dale," and the nymphs, are of a high and melancholy imagination. But Milton "found the subject to be above the years he had when he wrote it," and "was nothing satisfied with what he had done". After deliberately selecting and weighing many themes, for example that of Arthur, he returned when old, blind, and fallen on what he deemed "evil days," to the topic of wars in heaven, and man's Fall and Redemption.
"L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" are impeccable early poems. Milton is not yet so Puritan as to denounce Merry England, "the jocund rebecks," the dancing youths and maids, the tales of fairy Mab and the Brownie, and the stage: if Jonson and sweetest Shakespeare be the playwrights. Milton was deeply learned in the classics, but there is none of the pedantry of his age in his allusions to Prince Memnon, or "that starr'd Aethiop Queen," though now many readers must turn to notes for information about them. Octosyllabic lines had never before been written with such variety of grave and gay as by Milton, who in verse is a supreme master and "inventor of harmonies". Spenser had not his variety: in Milton's poems, as in his lines "On a Solemn Music"
The bright Seraphim, in burning row
Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow.
Yet Milton's party in the State set its face like a flint against the "solemn music" of the churches as against the "joyous rebecks" of the lads and lasses.
In 1634 Milton produced a masque, the one great and enduring masque of the many that were played in the halls of princes and peers. "Comus" was presented at Ludlow Castle, the house of Lord Bridgewater, President of Wales, and the actors were his family. The Muse is heavenly, the theme is divine Chastity; there is no such awful contrast to the purity of the Lady as that which Fletcher, in "The Faithful Shepherdess," presents in the person of the deplorable Cloe. As in the plays of Euripides, an explanatory prologue is spoken by a Spirit, who later appears as the shepherd Thyrsis. We learn that Comus (Revelry) the son of Dionysus the Wine God and Circe the enchantress of the "Odyssey," has settled in "this ominous wood" in Britain; tempts travellers with the crystal cup of his sorceries, and changes them into beast-headed adventurers. Then Comus enters with his torch-bearing company, swine, bulls, goats, bears, and in beautiful lines, recommends his unholy ethics.
Come, let us our rites begin,
'Tis only daylight that makes sin.
But something warns him that a chaste being draws near; he dismisses his troop; the Lady enters, she has lost her way in the dark wood, her brothers have strayed apart, she hopes to meet merry peasants who will guide her; she calls them by a song, and Comus appears, summoned by the notes
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness, till it smiled.
Thinking Comus an honest shepherd, the Lady follows him: her brothers enter in search of her, the Spirit warns them of her danger, and gives them such virtuous herbs as Hermes gives to Odysseus in Circe's isle. Armed with these they scatter the satyrs of Comus, but only Sabrina, nymph of the Severn, called and replying in lyrics of ineffable beauty can release the Lady from the enchanted chair of Comus. The majesty, delicacy, and beauty of the ideas are matched by the exquisite music of the blank verse and lyric passages, for at the age of 26 and in his poetic prime of youth, Milton was already a master of every technical resource of poetry; of everything, except humour and the power of creating human characters. He might compose poetry more august and sustained than "Comus," but he never could be a better poet man he was in 1634. Sanity, order, form, absence of vain conceit and ingenious antithesis were as natural to Milton as they were unknown to Donne and the Fletchers.