How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arrived so near,
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.
Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.

With aspirations thus vast, though unformed, with "amplitude of mind
to greatest deeds," Milton retired to his father's house in the
country. Five more years of self-education, added to the seven years
of academical residence, were not too much for the meditation of
projects such as Milton was already conceiving. Years many more than
twelve, filled with great events and distracting interests, were to
pass over before the body and shape of _Paradise Lost_ was given to
these imaginings.

The country retirement in which the elder Milton had fixed himself was
the little village of Horton, situated in that southernmost angle of
the county of Buckingham, which insinuates itself between Berks and
Middlesex. Though London was only about seventeen miles distant, it
was the London of Charles I., with its population of some 300,000