Read it through once

The political context of Marvell's life cannot be ignored. He lived through the Civil War and the Commonwealth, and his poem-sequences and pamphlets reveal a mind engaged in public affairs. Yet his political writing is not that of a partisan rhetorician: it is reflective, nuanced, aware of the complexity of motives and the dangers of dogmatism. Thus his political poetry frequently moves away from direct exhortation to philosophical admonition.