“Now came still evening on, and twilight grayHad in her sober livery all things clad;Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;She all night long her amorous descant sung;Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmamentWith living sapphires; Hesperus, that ledThe starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,Rising in clouded majesty, at lengthApparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.”

English poet, polemicist, and civil servant

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. He is remembered for Paradise Lost, the 1667 epic poem that secured his place among the major poets of English literature. Paradise Lost was written in blank verse and arranged in 12 books. Set against a period of religious and political upheaval, it recounts the fall of man, from the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan to their expulsion from Eden. Milton also served the Commonwealth of England in government, first under the Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell.