And, as I passed, I worshipped. If those you seek,
It were a journey like the path to Heaven
To help you find them.
This has all the technical marks of late Elizabethan dramatic blank verse: "vision" as a trisyllable; the redundant syllable in the middle of the line; the colloquial abbreviation of "in the"; not to mention the fanciful vein of the whole passage, which might lead any one unacquainted with Milton to look for this quotation among the dramas of the prime. The great hyperbolical strain of the Elizabethans, which so often broke into rant, is caught and nobly echoed in praise of virtue:--
If this fail,
The pillared firmament is rottenness
And earth's base built on stubble.
Or, to take a last example of Milton's earlier style, this description of the Lady's singing is in marked contrast to the later matured manner:--
At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound
Rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,