The forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil th' unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through advent'rous war
Urged his active star:
And, like the three-forked lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nursed,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide.
For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous or enemy;
And with such, to enclose
This simile imagines Cromwell breaking out of the clouds that created him. Yet again, Marvell is linking Cromwell to God and Heaven. His violent emergence into the world of the English struggle for power has been divisive.
An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwells Return from Ireland