Dell'Amico is a college instructor of English literature and composition. In this essay, Dell'Amico considers Milton's poem within the contexts of the poet's career, his influence on other poets, and the nature of his religious beliefs.

Poems that are not given titles by their writers, such as this one by Milton, tend to be identified by their first line ("How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth"). About fifty years after Milton's death, however, this poem was dubbed "On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-Three." This title was immediately popular and has endured, even if some scholars of Milton wonder whether in saying that "Time" has "Stol'n" his "three-and-twentieth year" Milton is actually saying that he is commemorating in this poem his twenty-fourth and not his twenty-third birthday (in this case, what has been "Stol'n" is not really his twenty-third year of life, but...