The inevitable conflation of wit and loyalty in the poetry of the cavaliers presents a formidable occasion to explore the unique ground in which an already "falling world" gives pace to the rising awareness of a new order. In the midst of the seventeenth century, the determined impulse of political events marks an urgent agenda in the developments of poetics, thus the compact picture of Spenser’s Faerie, the trustworthy precepts of Sidney’s defence, and Peacham’s instructions to "complete a gentleman", while proving the invaluable background in the process of poetic composition, also reveal inadequacies about the prescribed place of the poet.
    Politics collide with poetics. The compositional milieu of the poetry of Richard Lovelace discards potential paths of poetic orthodoxy to force the realization that gentlemen, future anglers, are in many cases, in prison. These surroundings for "leisure" produced "To Althea. From Prison", and his later visit to jail ends with the publication of the Lucasta poems. Lovelace’s verse succeeds in adapting itself to the circumstances but fails to neutralize the flamboyant echo created by a wholly outmoded poetic ideal.