ON HIS DECEASED WIFE

METHOUGHT I saw my late espoused saint

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the Old Law did save,

And such as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.

Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined So clear as in no face with more delight.

But, oh! as to embrace me she inclined,

I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

CHRONOLOGICAL

1608-1639. First Period: Education and Early Poems

1608

Born at the Spread Eagle, Bread Street, Cheapside,
London, December 9.

Early education at home.

1620-25 At St. Paul's School. Friendship with Diodati. Paraphrase on Psalms cxiv. and cxxxvi.

1625

1626

Enters Christ College, Cambridge.

On the Death of a Fair Infant dying of a Cough.
Elegia Prima, Ad Carolum Diodatum.

At a Vacation Exercise in the College.

Degree of Bachelor of Arts.

1628

1629

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.

Elegia Sexta, Ad Carolum Diodatum.

1630

Upon the Circumcision. The Passion.

On Time.

1631

1632

At a Solemn Music. Song on May Morning. On
Shakespeare.

On the University Carrier. Another on the Same.
An Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester.

his having arrived at the Age of Twenty-three.
Leaves Cambridge.

1632-38 At Horton, Buckinghamshire.

1633

1634

1637

To the Nightingale. L'Allegro. Il Penseroso.
Arcades. Comus.

1638-39 Journey to the Continent. Italian Sonnets.

Returns to St. Bride's, Fleet Street, London.
Epitaphium Damonis.

On

1640

1641

1642

1643

1644

1640-1660. Second Period: Prose Works and Sonnets

1645

1646

1647

1648

1649

1651

1652

At Aldersgate Street. Becomes tutor to his nephews.
First plan of Paradise Lost.

First of a series of pamphlets on social and political
questions. Of Reformation touching Church Dis-
cipline in England.

When the Assault was intended to the City.

His wife

Marriage to Mary Powell. She deserts him and he
writes The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.
To a Virtuous Young Lady. To the Lady Margaret
Ley. On Education. Judgment of Martin Bucer.
Areopagitica. Colasterion. Tetrachordon.
At Barbican. First edition of his poems.
returns. On the Detraction which followed upon my
writing Certain Treatises. On the Same.
Death of his father. On the New Forcers of Con-
science. To Mr. H. Lawes on his Airs. On the Re-
ligious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson.

At High Holborn, Lincoln's Inn Fields.
On the Lord General Fairfax.

Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

Becomes Latin Secretary to Cromwell.
Eikonoklastes.

Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio.

At Petty France, Westminster.

1659-60 Last pamphlets.

1660

1660

1663

1664

1665

1667

1671

1674

The Restoration. Milton in hiding and in custody.

1660-1674. Third Period: The Great Epics

At High Holborn and Jewin Street.

Marriage to Elizabeth Minshul.
Friendship of Thomas Ellwood.
At Artillery Walk, Bunhill-fields.
Paradise Lost completed.

Paradise Lost published.

Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes published.

Death.