Descriptions of crowds eagerly travelling to Dover to meet Charles were not uncommon in works published during the days immediately following his return. Here most of the commonplaces are well represented, especially the emphasis on a general desire to see this spectacular occasion. This version opens with a cosmogenic analogy -- Charles creates the world by his return -- which develops into a series of biblical references that, in turn, slide into analogies with classical mythology and Virgilian georgic. This displacement of biblical by classical allusions is singularly apt since the interregnum governments had legitimated their authority by constant reference to, and use of, the Old Testament. Against this tendency, Charles's return reintroduces the neo-classicism associated with the culture of the Stuarts. Writers who supported Cromwell had commonly identified him with the olive-branch of peace, so the careful conditional usage in l. 18 neatly marks the structural transition from biblical to classical while also suggesting how the Restoration really began with the protector's death in 1658. Severalo other poets explained that the years which Charles had spent abroad were a providentially ordained education in foreign politics that could only benefit him and his kingdom now he had returned to rule.

   Only one copy of this poem seems to have survived. I have been unable to identify the author.