 Marvell was replying to the royalist epic poem "Gondibert" (1651) by William Davenant.The poem was influenced by works of Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland and Constantijn Huyghens; it also draws on Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant, a poet whom Fairfax had translated.There are numerous interpretations, including those of Abraham who sees the poem as a memory map (to regain Paradise), and Stocker, who sees it as an "epic in miniature" and reads closely the later sections for apocalyptic language relating to England as elect nation.