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.
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.