Paradise Lost' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to 'justify the ways of God to men'. John Milton (9 December 1608 - 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell.