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The poem is like the nymph whom he addresses,
Buxom, blithe, and debonaire.
The _Penseroso_ is a tribute to tender melancholy, and is designed as a
pendant to the _Allegro_:
Pensive nun devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train.
We fall in love with each goddess in turn, and find comfort for our
varying moods from "grave to gay."
Burke said he was certain Milton composed the _Penseroso_ in the aisle of
a cloister, or in an ivy-grown abbey.
_Comus_ is a noble poem, philosophic and tender, but neither pastoral nor
dramatic, except in form; it presents the power of chastity in disarming
_Circe, Comus_, and all the libidinous sirens. _L'Allegro_ and _Il
Penseroso_ were written at Horton, about 1633.
_Lycidas_, written in 1637, is a tender monody on the loss of a friend
named King, in the Irish Channel, in that year, and is a classical
pastoral, tricked off in Italian garb. What it loses in adherence to
classic models and Italian taste, is more than made up by exquisite lines
and felicitous phrases.


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