Spenser,
Ben Jonson, and Marlowe; Dryden, Cowley, and Waller; Milton, George
Herbert, and Gray--to mention only the most familiar names--had owed
allegiance to that mother who received Wordsworth now, and Coleridge
and Byron immediately after him. "Not obvious, not obtrusive, she;"
but yet her sober dignity has often seemed no unworthy setting for
minds, like Wordsworth's, meditative without languor, and energies
advancing without shock or storm. Never, perhaps, has the spirit of
Cambridge been more truly caught than in Milton's _Penseroso_; for
this poem obviously reflects the seat of learning which the poet had
lately left, just as the _Allegro_ depicts the cheerful rusticity of
the Buckinghamshire village which was his now home. And thus the
_Penseroso_ was understood by Gray, who, in his _Installation Ode_,
introduces Milton among the bards and sages who lean from heaven,
To bless the place where, on their opening soul,
First the genuine ardour stole.
"'Twas Milton struck the deep-toned shell," and invoked with the old
affection the scenes which witnessed his best and early years:
Ye brown o'er-arching groves,
That contemplation loves,
Where willowy Camus lingers with delight!
Oft at the blush of dawn
I trod your level lawn.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25