Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) was an English poet and politician, one of the last of the great metaphysical poets and one of the finest lyricists of the seventeenth century. His poems — the seduction masterpiece "To His Coy Mistress," the "Horatian Ode" on Cromwell, and the garden poems — are among the most exact, witty and allusive in the language.

Marvell served as Latin Secretary during the Commonwealth, tutored Cromwell's ward, and later sat as an MP defending toleration and liberty of conscience under the restored monarchy. His political satires and poems of retreat have made him the supreme example of the poet in affairs, and his fame has grown steadily in the criticism of modern poetry.