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The measure is English heroic verse without rhyme, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin, rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame meter; graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have expressed them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme both in longer and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial, and of no true musical delight, which consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then of rhyme so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming.
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The Verse: 這段關於《失樂園》詩體的序文出現在一六八八年第一版第四刷，旨在為 本詩採用無韻腳做辯護。密爾頓認為韻腳的使用只是一種裝飾與累贅。他強調不用韻腳是為了回歸自由，與擺脫人為的約束。
English heroic verse:
英語英雄詩體為每行十個音節(ten-syllable)，抑揚五步格(iambic pentameter)的詩體。常用於史詩(epic)或敘事詩(narrative poetry)。
a barbarous age: 指中世紀（The Middle Ages），即歐洲史上從羅馬帝國崩潰到文藝復興之間的一段時間（約西元500至1500年）。拉丁詩人從西元五、六世紀開始使用韻腳。
modern: 密爾頓的『現代』指文藝復興時期 (Renaissance)。
our best English tragedies: 主要指英國劇作家莎士比亞(William Shakespeare)，但也可能包括馬婁(Christopher Marlowe)、韋伯斯特(John Webster)等人。
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