SOURCE: "Andrew Marvell's Cromwell Poems," in Bucknell Review, Vol. VII, No. 1, May, 1956, pp. 41-70.

In the following essay on "Horatian Ode" and "The First Anniversary of the Government Under O.C.," Carens reconsiders Marvell's contradictory depiction of Cromwell.

I

Though Andrew Marvell's Horatian Ode has often been commented upon, two later poems in honor of Oliver Cromwell have received little attention. It is not surprising that A Poem Upon the Death of O. C. has been largely ignored, for it is overlong and without real unity. Lines such as these are, of course, splendid:

Unfortunately, however, this is one of the few sections of the poem that deeply engages our feelings; and, if we remember these lines, we also remember the artificiality of the conceit—a real example of metaphysical excess—by which Marvell attempts to relate the death of the Protector to that of his favorite daughter...