: ee ee 
JOHN MILTON 55 
and emphatically pagan; yet so consummate is the 
skill with which the varying modes of the poem have 
been marshalled that there is nothing abrupt or shock- 
ing in the change, but our minds follow in entire 
acquiescence : — 
“ Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more ; 
Henceforth thou art the genius of the shore 
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 
To all that wander in that perilous flood.” 
The next line shows that this change from the Chris- 
tian to the pagan mood was needed in order to intro- 
duce properly the exquisite scene that concludes the 
poem : — 
“Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 
While the still morn went out with sandals gray, 
He touched the tender stops of various quills, 
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: 
And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, 
And now was dropt into the western bay. 
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue, 
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.” 
It was more than twenty years before the promise 
of the last line was fulfilled. Not until 1658 did Mil- 
ton turn to fresh woods and pastures new, when he 
began to work steadily at “ Paradise Lost.” In that 
long interval he wrote no poetry save a few sonnets 
and an occasional psalm. In the complete edition of 
Milton’s works, the best edition, published by Picker- 
ing, in 1851, the poems are all contained in two vol- 
umes, while the prose works fill six volumes. Let us 
see how so many works came to be written in prose. 
In 1638, still pursuing his studies toward the writ- 
ing of a great poem, Milton started for a journey on 
