‘L'Allegro’

‘L'Allegro’,
a poem in rhymed octosyllabics with a ten-line prelude by Milton , written 1631? , printed 1645 . The Italian title means ‘the cheerful man’, and this idyll is an invocation to the goddess Mirth to allow the poet to live with her, first amid the delights of pastoral scenes, then amid those of ‘towered cities’ and the ‘busy hum of men’. It is a companion piece to ‘Il Penseroso ’.