Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’ and the Restorative Power of Nature

‘The Garden’ by 17th-century English poet Andrew Marvell covers much ground, from the benefit of alone time in nature to the soul’s search for a divine Creator.

An English country garden inspired more than simple appreciation, in Andrew Marvell's 17th-century poem "The Garden." Rodney Burton/CC BY-SA 2.0

Where do we find peace and contentment? That’s a question philosophers and poets have wrestled with since the beginning. The 17th-century metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell’s poem, “The Garden,” makes a contribution to the centuries-long discussion.

In the poem, Marvell (1621–1678) compares ambition and achievement with the verdant beauty and gentle peace of nature, suggesting that true contentment is found in the latter, and not the former. Marvell celebrates contemplative solitude, the appreciation of nature, and spiritual values, while criticizing the values that society so often promotes, including ambition, success, and sensual passion.

This is an interesting critique of society from a man who was best known during his lifetime for his political activity and authorship of erotic poems such as “To His Coy Mistress.” Yet Marvell’s shift of perspective makes some sense if he wrote this work in retirement, around 1650, as most critics believe. If that’s the case, then these sentiments are the sentiments of a man of political note reflecting back on his life and career.

A portrait of Andrew Marvell, between 1655 and 1660, Anonymous. Public Domain

The aging poet concludes that much of it lacked meaning, insofar as he busied himself trying to win the acclaim of others, the frantic pursuit of a gleaming glory that fades almost as soon as it is won. The poem expresses, perhaps, a lesson that Marvell learned the hard way: Passion is fleeting, praise is transient, and all the money in the world is nothing compared to the wealth of beauty found in common things like plants.

Marvell knew something of worldly achievements. Better known as a politician than a poet until relatively recently, Marvell was educated at Cambridge, served in the House of Commons, tutored members of the nobility (including a ward of Cromwell), and worked as an assistant to the literary and political titan John Milton.

By the time Marvell wrote this poem, he'd had tasted a good deal of what we often call “success.” Yet he compares all that unfavorably with the sweet taste of the grapes and melons, and spiritual freedom symbolized by the garden in this poem.

In the World to Beyond It

Written in rhyming couplets which evoke an atmosphere of peace and harmony, “The Garden” begins with an assertion of the futility of seeking fame and renown for their own sakes. “How vainly men themselves amaze/ To win the palm, the oak, or bays.” As English professor Kumar Baibhav pointed out, these plants represent military (palm), civic (oak), and poetic (bay) feats, respectively.

The decision to symbolize these achievements using plants was a brilliant move because it allowed Marvell to show how paltry a single palm, oak, or bay leaf looks when compared to the abundance of an entire garden of plants, flowers, and trees—which he is about to describe. Through the deft use of imagery, Marvell emphasizes the smallness of these human endeavors when compared with both the rich natural world and the expansive spiritual realm. He also compares it with the spiritual world, which he describes using images from nature, such as the ocean.

A statue of Marvell adorns Trinity Square in Hull, England. nick macneill/CC BY-SA 2.0

Nature Through A Spiritual Lens

The second stanza begins to elaborate on the superiority of nature. The stanza describes the garden that forms the literal and metaphorical environment for the whole poem, Marvell wrote:

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, And Innocence, thy sister dear! Mistaken long, I sought you then In busy companies of men; Your sacred plants, if here below, Only among the plants will grow. Society is all but rude, To this delicious solitude.

In this stanza, Marvell personifies the concepts of “quiet” and “innocence” as female figures that live in the garden, figures that for years the speaker looked for in vain among the bustling crowds of the city, the commercial and political world. The personified female figures prepare the way for Marvell to introduce his next comparison: romantic passion and the tranquil garden.

In this contrast between the commotion of society and the tranquility of nature, Marvell anticipates the English Romantic poets, who heavily emphasized the need to escape the corruption of human society and the triviality of political bickering by entering into nature. The idea that society is “rude” (meaning “insensitive”) to the beauties of solitude in nature were taken up by William Wordsworth in “The World is Too Much With Us” or, later still, the verses of Gerard Manley Hopkins in “God’s Grandeur.”

"A Young Couple Sit Talking in a Garden" by C. Heath. Fæ/CC BY 4.0

The next few stanzas develop this comparison. “No white nor red was ever seen/ So am’rous as this lovely green.” White and red were considered symbolic of romantic passion in the 17th century, but Marvell argues the green of the garden is a better color. He then argues that the tree in which a man cut his lover’s name is actually more beautiful than the woman in question. Next, he notes that “When we have run our passion’s heat/ Love hither makes his best retreat.” In this pair of lines, Marvell contrasts the transience of passion with the stable tranquility of the garden, which waits, ever-new, for the lover to make his or her “retreat.”

The following stanza, stanza 5, indulges in lush detail, steeped in sensory language to accentuate the garden’s appeal. “Ripe apples drop about my head; / The luscious clusters of the vine / Upon my mouth do crush their wine.”  Sibilant sounds throughout these lines reflect and mimic the sound of slurping down rich juices, fruits, and wines. It’s enough to make your mouth water. After eating the fresh fruit, the poet can collapse on a bed of turf: “Stumbling on melons as I pass/ Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass.”

A garden in Cornwall Park, Hastings, New Zealand, proves that no matter where in the world, nature is still fresh and beautiful compared to the disorder and racket of people. The Loyal Order/CC BY-SA 4.0

After this luxurious stanza focused on the sensory and the physical, the poet shifts his attention to the mental and spiritual. The garden now begins to take on an even deeper significance, becoming a metaphor for the poet’s mental landscape, which offers freedom from the pressures of human society.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find, Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade.

Now introspective, the speaker contemplates the creative power of the mind, which can generate whole “other worlds.” That thought, seems to remind the poet of the original Creator, whose creative work is echoed in the creative power of the human spirit.

Literary critic Nasrullah Mambrol draws attention to the term “annihilating,” which appears toward the end of the stanza. He notes, “Marvell’s age sometimes employed the term “annihilation” in a religious sense, to indicate obliteration of self in order to unite with God.” Thus, another shift occurs as the poet moves swiftly from physical to mental, and then from mental to spiritual and theological.

The following stanza makes this turn even more explicit as the poet casts aside ‘the body’s vest” while the soul rises freely to the treetops. “There like a bird it sits and sings.” The speaker discovers ever-greater freedom through spiritual contentment.

The cemetery at St. Germain's Church in Winestead, England, was where Andrew Marvell's father was pastor. His son's penchant for gardens and nature may have been inspired by the beautiful surroundings of his youth. Paul Glazzard/CC BY-SA 2.0

A New Eden

Having introduced the spiritual note, the poet’s song now begins to reimagine the garden once again: this time as the archetypal and primeval garden of Eden, a place and symbol of spiritual innocence and union with God. “Such was the happy garden-state. ...  Howe well the skillful gard’ner drew/ Of flow’rs and herbs this dial new, / Where from above the milder sun / Does through a fragrant zodiac run.”

The garden has taken on new layers of meaning at this point. In the words of Scott Horton, “The garden is simply a country garden. And the garden is ‘paradise,’ a word that etymologists tell us comes from an old Persian tongue meaning a garden with a walled enclosure.” The garden speaks of all humanity’s deepest memories and desires, of a hidden place of peace before the dawn of time.

The “skillful gard’ner” is, of course, God, who composed all beautiful things in both the natural and spiritual realms. In the final stanza, the speaker himself vanishes, dissolving into a perfect union with the natural environment and, perhaps, its Creator. Dominant images are sunlight, the gentle passage of time, and the mesmerizing humming of a bee.

As Baibhav put it, “The only industry in this garden of meditation and reflection ... is that of the bee, which, unlike the busy humans of the opening sections, moves with the rhythms of nature.”

An country garden in Shaftesbury, England. The simple beauty of nature in inspiring in many ways. Katy Walters/CC BY-SA 2.0

Those rhythms, as expressed by the turning of heavenly bodies and the recurring seasonal activity of the bee, have something eternal to them. And so the poem—like the poet—comes to a place of enduring rest and stability in its conclusion.

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