The Great Poets: John Milton

Milton stands alongside Shakespeare and the Bible in the power of his verse and its continuing impact. He is one of the great voices of English poetry. Born in 1608, he is best known for his epic Paradise Lost, but most of his writing life was spent composing shorter works. This collection brings together his brilliant early poems, including Il Penseroso, L'Allegro and Lycidas, as well as some of the finest and most touching works of his maturity, such as On His Blindness and Methought I saw my late espoused saint. This anthology will serve as an introduction, or as a reminder of the range and variety of John Milton's great gifts. INCLUDED IN The Great Poets - John Milton * At a Vacation Exercise * L'Allegro * Il Penseroso * At a Solemn Musick * To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Aires * On Time * On Shakespear * On The Morning of Christ's Nativity * The Hymn * Sonnet: To the Lord General Cromwell * On The Detraction Which Followed Upon My Writing Certain Treatises * Sonnet: On the late Massacre in Piedmont * Lycidas * Sonnet: On the Nightingale * Sonnet traditionally entitled On My Twenty-Third Birthday * Paradise Lost The Opening of Book I * Paradise Lost Book 1 * Paradise Lost From the opening of Book II * From Book XII of Paradise Lost * Paradise Regained Book I * Sonnet: Upon a deceased wife * Sonnet: On His Blindness * Sonnet: To his friend Cyriack Skinner * From the play: Samson Agonistes * From Comus: A Masque