ABSTRACT
Seventeenth-century English poetry is deeply and allusively concerned with what is actually happening to the natural world: not only the classic matters of mining and agriculture, but also accelerated air pollution, deforestation, damming of rivers, and draining of wetlands. These activities connect both to politics, causing land disputes and especially affecting the poor, and to religion, especially for those who believe that, as Milton’s Michael says to Adam, “[God’s] omnipresence fills / Land, sea, and air, and every kind that lives, / Fomented by his virtual power and warmed” (11.336-8).
