Did with attentive looks watch every hour
For thy new light."
And so Campbell:—
"When on the green, undeluged earth,
Heaven's covenant, thou didst shine;
How came the world's grey fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign."
Altogether, no age—not even our own—has produced such a constellation of poets, nor such a mass of exquisite, superb, and imperishable poetry. Whilst Shakespeare was fast departing, Milton was rising, and during this period wrote many of his inimitable smaller poems. Even honest Andrew Marvell, when freed from his labours in the great struggle for the Commonwealth, solaced himself with writing poetry, English and Latin, and some of it of no contemptible order, as in his boat-song of the exiles of the Bermudas:—
"Thus they sang in the English boat
A holy and a cheerful note,