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In a consideration of his poetry, we must now first recur to those pieces
which he had written at an earlier day. Before settling in London, he had,
as we have seen, travelled fifteen months on the Continent, and had been
particularly interested by his residence in Italy, where he visited the
blind Galileo. The poems which most clearly show the still powerful
influence of Italy in all European literature, and upon him especially,
are the _Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso_, and _Lycidas_, each
beautiful and finished, and although Italian in their taste, yet full of
true philosophy couched in charming verse.
The _Arcades_, (Arcadians,) composed in 1684, is a pastoral masque,
enacted before the Countess Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble
persons of her family. The _Allegro_ is the song of Mirth, the nymph who
brings with her
Jest and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
* * * * *
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.


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