The Collected Poems

By Andrew Marvell

Poems

"Upon Appleton House"

Marvell was a poet who was trying very hard to come to terms with the political turmoil that faced his country and this is exemplified by this poem about the country retreat of a great military general, who had been opposed to the violence of the rebellion against the Charles I. It is most obviously in this poem that Marvell shows a concern with looking into the 'abyss' of the human heart (an idea initially used by his mentor Milton in Paradise Lost and his theory of self-determination), it is due to this that the poem is slightly Narcissistic in its nature. The mythical figure himself is referred to directly in the poem ("Narcissus-like, the sun too pines") and there is also a great deal of self-reference, particularly in the middle section of the poem; "I toss", "I begin", "I returning", "I careless on the bed", "I move and "I your silken bondage break". This excessive use of the first person singular in a poem in which Marvell has previously been a spectator observing the garden of the stately home from afar, jolts the reader into remembering that Marvell too has been involved in the political struggles of his country.

The poem is littered with political imagery. Thestylis who is conventionally considered to be a simple- shepherdess is referred to as "bloody" and her actions as vulture-like. We are told how "death trumpets creak" in the throats of parent birds and meadows suddenly become a "camp of battail", the mower a military leader; "The mower now commands the field", and the meadow a battle field of the civil war, littered with bodies; "the meads with hay, the plain / Lies quilted o'er with bodies slain."

Within the poem there is real sense of the 'a world turned upside down' highlighting the bizarre political incidents that have taken place within the country. Before the 1640s it would have been unthinkable that an English monarch could be executed, yet after the Revolution this became an actuality:

"here men like grasshoppers appear,

But grasshoppers are giants there:

They, in their squeaking laugh, contemn

Us as we walk more low than them:"

The hierarchy of the garden has been subverted: man is now subordinate to insects. Grasshoppers who were usually seen as weak and decorative insects are humanized and empowered - they are now linked to the Cavaliers of the civil war. This historical and political phantasmagoric world reminds us of Gulliver's Travels (Swift) or Alice In Wonderland (Lewis Caroll): nothing is as it should be and we are disorientated and confused by this.

There are many references to the Biblical book of Exodus within the poem and this does seem to allude to Marvell's concern of escaping from the political bondage of his country ("He called us Israelites; / But now, to make his saying true, Rails rain for quails, for manna dew"). Just as Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt and away from the bondage of the Egyptian people to the liberty of the wilderness it seems that Marvell is looking to poetry to free him from his political constraints:

"Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines,

Curl me about ye gadding vines….

Do you, O brambles, chain me too,

And, courteous briars, nail me through."

Here, he seems stoically resigned to the fact that he can never escape from the turmoil his country is faced with, however in his resignation he manages to show wit. It is as though this image is a camp joke, he is aware of his fate so he will regard it with a slightly sexual, sensual even masochistic contempt.

"Damon the Mower"

In this poem Marvell seems to be questioning his own faiths and convictions, and it is only as he comes to terms with these that he is able to write so lucidly and ironically:

"To what cool cave shall I descend,

Or to what gelid fountain bend?

Alas! I look for ease in vain,

When remedies themselves complain

Although ostensibly Marvell is writing here about how his hero Damon can escape the "scorching" love he endures for Juliana they also illustrate the struggles and conflicts that Marvell is suffering within himself. He is desperate to find escape in a landscape and yet it offers him none - he is conveying the sense that in such unstable times it is impossible for him to feel totally convinced of where his loyalty should lie.

In both this poem and "Upon Appleton House" Marvell relates the figure of the mower to the blind indiscriminate forces of the civil war: killing soldiers, military leader and the king alike. The poem ends with the assertion that "Death thou art a mower too." Having already described how Damon "threw his elbow round, / Depopulating all the ground" - here it does not matter who is injured - only death can save Damon from his destructive love of Juliana and only through death can the politics of a country be escaped.

At the beginning of the poem Love is portrayed as a destroyer of harmony in a purely physical sense, it "sears" the meadows and the hamstringed frogs can dance no more" (note the connection with the grasshoppers in "Upon Appleton House"). However as the progresses the destruction also manifests itself mentally ("Yet still my grief is where it was; / But, when the iron blunter grows, / Sighing I whet my scythe and woes"). This reflects the fact that a war not only physically harms and kills people but it also has a mental effect which may not be immediately obvious; a war affects the moods and attitudes of society as well those who fight in it.

"The Garden"

This poem is about the potential for peace and purity of nature within in a garden setting and how this potential is destroyed by the invasion of the society and all that is unnatural. The Stoics believed that the garden was a place for peace and meditation therefore this is arguably Marvell's most stoical poem.

The poem lauds the beauty and tranquility of the garden over the desire for perfection, beauty and accolades:

"How vainly men themselves amaze

To win the palm, the oak or bays;

Their uncessant labours see

Crowned from some single herb or tree:

In these first lines Marvell criticizes those in society who try an attain awards and praise for their actions - nature may be able to provide a symbol of excellence yet those wearing those symbols will never reach the level of flawlessness achieved by nature.

Colour is hugely important within the poem: we are told that "No white nor red was ever seen / So amorous as this lovely Green". Here, typically feminine colours are subordinated to those of nature: green is historically known as the 'benedicta viriditas', the colour of hope and a creative spirit. Marvell is therefore seeing the garden as a place of hope: somewhere where he can retreat in order to be creative. It seems that this garden is like the biblical 'paradise of pleasure,' which satisfies the senses whilst simultaneously calling for a contemplation of the source of such delights. The submission of the female colours to male ones immediately draws attention to the fact that this paradise is not a libertine one - no women are present within it only their names which are carved on trees. This merely shows up how inferior people are to nature:

"Fond lovers cruel as their flame,

Cut in trees their mistress' name:

Little, alas, they know or heed

How far theses beauties hers exceed"

Marvell's poem is almost misogynistic - adhering to the school of thought that Adam was better off in the Garden of Eden without Eve ("Such was that happy garden-state, / While man there walked without a mate") , just as the garden would be better off without the invasions of society - destroying its natural beauty.

"The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers"

Though less explicitly about the beauty and harmony of nature this poem is in some ways linked to Marvell's "Mower" poems. It describes a small girl (T.C.) who he feels is destined to grow up and change - becoming the same type of person as Juliana - he believes that she too will master love and human desire and in turn break hearts. From the very start he refers to her as a "nymph" which has sexual and playful connotations, he then remarks how "…She whose chaster laws / The wanton Love shall one day fear, / And under her command severe / See his bow broke and ensigns torn."

Nonetheless this is a more positive poem - T.C. has a generous and respectful relationship with nature:

"And there with her fair aspects tames

The wilder flowers, and gives them names"

She is an innocent and it is in this capacity that she cannot spoil nature - she does not have the selfish desire or jealousy necessary.

The poem does also have a slightly more serious undertone. During a time of war and uncertainty Marvell seems very aware that a nation's hope lies with the youth as they carry with them a country's ability to grow, mature and develop successfully. Therefore children like T.C. become fragile necessities. War does not discriminate between who it kills and Marvell is only too aware that T.C. could die in her youth:

"Gather the flowers, but spare the buds,

Lest Flora, angry at thy crime,

To kill her infants in their prime

Do quickly make the example yours;

And ere we see,

Nap in the blossom all our hopes in thee."

"To His Coy Mistress"

This poem is very invitational and reflects many courtly lyrics, its form is syllogistic (as illustrated in the paragraphs starting with "Had", "But" and "Now"). The concept behind the poem is that of 'carpe diem' - he is attempting to persuade his lover to give in to his charms or at least his words since she does not know what will happen in the future.

Within the poem Marvell blends sterile almost mathematical listings of his love's beauties ("Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; / Two hundred to adore each breast / But thirty thousand to the rest; / An age at least to every part, / And the last age should show your heart.") with echoes of a Greek epigram ("Thy beauty shall no more be found / Nor in thy marble vault, shall sound / My echoing song").

The poem moves through stages: there is the initial placatory section in which he apologizes for having to persuade his lover to move so fast and blames it on the fact that time moves too fast ("Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, Lady, were no crime. He then progresses to describe an ideal way in which he could woo her if the did not have to move so fast, however, what is starkly obvious is that this is not Marvell's own ideal: his is not to wait. The ideal that he describes is that which he believes his mistress believes in. In the penultimate section Marvell makes a covert threat to his mistress. He illustrates the point to her that there is little point in waiting and saving herself as if she dies before she has been able to enjoy life then her abstemiousness will have little point ("Then worms shall try / That thy long-preserved virginity, / And your quaint honour turn to dust." By the end of the poem Marvell has come up with a practical solution:

"Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball"

It seems that the only way for his mistress to enjoy life is to give into his wooing. Thus this unusual poem inverts a typical courtly love lyric - debasing and subordinating tradition and manners to base human emotions.