Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell spent twenty years as Member of Parliament for Hull and published almost none of his poetry while he lived. Three years after his death, his housekeeper — claiming to be his widow — brought out Miscellaneous Poems (1681), and in it was "To His Coy Mistress," the wittiest carpe diem argument in English: "Had we but world enough, and time."

Marvell was also assistant to the blind John Milton in Cromwell's government, and after the Restoration he used his political weight to help keep Milton from the gallows — arguably saving Paradise Lost before it was written.