Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

With the Restoration (1660) came disaster to the blind Puritan
poet, who had written too harshly against Charles I to be forgiven
by Charles II. He was forced to hide; his property was confiscated;
his works were burned in public by the hangman; had not his fame as
a writer raised up powerful friends, he would have gone to the
scaffold when Cromwell's bones were taken from the grave and hanged
in impotent revenge. He was finally allowed to settle in a modest
house, and to be in peace so long as he remained in obscurity. So
the pen was silenced that had long been a scourge to the enemies of
England.

[Sidenote: HIS LONELINESS]

His home life for the remainder of his years impresses us by its
loneliness and grandeur. He who had delighted as a poet in the
English country, and more delighted as a Puritan in the fierce
struggle for liberty, was now confined to a small house, going from
study to porch, and finding both in equal darkness. He who had
roamed as a master through the wide fields of literature was now
dependent on a chance reader. His soul also was afflicted by the
apparent loss of all that Puritanism had so hardly won, by the
degradation of his country, by family troubles; for his daughters
often rebelled at the task of taking his dictation, and left him
helpless. Saddest of all, there was no love in the house, for with
all his genius Milton could not inspire affection in his own
people; nor does he ever reach the heart of his readers.