METAPHYSICAL POEMS OF ANDREW MARVELL

                                         TO HIS COY MISTRESS

'To His Coy Mistress' is one of the famous poems of Andrew Marvell.  It is one of the best metaphysical love - poems in English Literature.  In this poem a lover addresses his beloved who refuses to grant him sexual favours on account of her modesty and her sense of honour.

The lover tells his beloved that her coyness would have been alright if they had enough time at their disposal.  If they had enough time and space at their disposal, she could have occupied herself in searching for rubies on the banks of the Indian river, the Ganges and he would have complained about his unfulfilled love on the banks of the English river Humber.  If they really had time, he would spend a hundred years in praising her eyes and gazing on her forehead, he would spend two hundred years in admiring each of her breasts and he would spend thirty thousand years in praising the remaining parts of her body.  The lover says that his beloved really deserves so much of praise.

The lover tells her beloved that the time is passing at a very fast pace, and eventually they have to face the deserts of the vast eternity.  After some years her beauty will no longer exist on this earth.  She will lie in her marble tomb, and her would no longer be in position to sing songs in her praise.  In the grave,the worms will attack her long - preserved virginity.  Then all his desire to make love to her will turn to ashes.  The lover adds that grave is a fine and private place, but nobody can have the experience of love - making there.

Thus, the lover says that it will be proper for them to enjoy the pleasures of love while there is still time, when her skin is still youthful and fresh.  They should devour the pleasure of love, rather than that they should suffer the pangs of unfulfilled love.

                                                                                                                                              

THE GARDEN

'The Garden' is one of the most popular poems of Andrew Marvell.  The present poem deals with the charms of a garden.  Here, the poet tries to establish the fact that true contemplation is possible only in the peaceful atmosphere of a garden.  A garden offers repose and quiet and it is here that a person can enjoy pleasures of the mind, soul and senses.

For a long time, the poet searched for quiet and innocence in men's company but in vain.  At last he got them in the solitude of a garden.  Human society is rude in comparison to the society of objects of nature found in a garden.  Speaking of the beauty of garden the poet says that there was never a beloved who was more beautiful than a green tree.  Those lovers who cut the names of their beloveds in the bark of trees are foolish.  The poet says that he would be never do so.  Passionate lovers find place and calmness in the midst of Nature.  Even Apollo and Pan ended their love in trees and plants. 

The poet gives a beautiful description of a tropical garden.  He finds here ripe apples, clusters of vine and nectarean peach.  He finds himself ensnared with flowers.  He falls on grass.  He felt the presence of a Divine spirit in nature.  His mind felt purified and rendered holy.  So it rises above the plane of the material world and forms images of other worlds.  He wants to become one with nature.  He identifies himself with various object of nature.  He finds himself sitting like a bird and singing of the joys of nature.

The poet compares his happiness to the happiness which Adam enjoyed in the Garden of Eden before Adam got a companion in the shape of Eve.  As long as Adam was alone in the Garden of Eden, His happiness was perfect.  It implies that men even today do not need women if they can spend their hours in a garden.  Finally, the poet admires the pattern formed by the flowers and herbs in one part of the garden.  As a result of that, the moving shadows of flowers and plants serve the purpose of a sun - dial.  And the laborious bee is able to calculate the passing of time as accurately as men do.