![]() ![]() ![]() Like much poetry written by the Metaphysical Poets, ‘The Coronet’ uses an extended metaphor – here, that of the crown, or garland, or ‘coronet’ – to discuss the poet’s attitude to Christ. That once adorned my shepherdess’s head … I gather flowers (my fruits are only flowers), I seek with garlands to redress that wrong: When for the thorns with which I long, too long, The mower praises the glow-worms for providing light, but laments the fact that their light is wasted because the speaker’s mind is not on the task of mowing the grass – his mind is distracted or ‘displac’d’ by thoughts of Juliana, the woman he loves. This was one of a series of ‘mower’ poems Marvell wrote. ![]() As the title of the poem suggests, ‘The Mower to the Glow-Worms’ is spoken by a ‘mower’ (traditionally, one who cuts the grass with a scythe), who addresses the glow-worms lighting the mower’s way through the field. Its celebrated lines about ‘Annihilating all that’s made / To a green thought in a green shade’ are especially memorable and evocative. This is one of Andrew Marvell’s most famous poems, and takes the form of a meditation in a garden this setting has led critics to interpret the poem as a response to the original biblical garden, Eden, while other commentators have understood the poem as a meditation about sex, political ambition, and various other themes. ![]()
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