" Thus in
twilight ends the life of the greatest lyric poet of the
seventeenth century.
All the lyric poets of whom I have told you were Royalists, but
the Puritans too had their poets, and before ending this chapter
I would like to tell you a little of Andrew Marvell, a
Parliamentary poet.
If Herrick was a lover of flowers, Marvell was a lover of
gardens, woods and meadows. The garden poet he has been called.
He felt himself in touch with Nature:--
"Thus I, easy philosopher,
Among the birds and trees confer,
And little now to make me wants,
Or of the fowls or of the plants:
Give me but wings as they, and I
Straight floating in the air shall fly;
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted tree."*
*Appleton House, to the Lord Fairfax.
Yet although Marvell loved Nature, he did not live, like Herrick,
far from the stir of war, but took his part in the strife of the
times. He was an important man in his day. He was known to
Cromwell and was a friend of Milton, a poet much greater than
himself.
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