So amorous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame.
Cut in these trees their mistress's name.
Liitle, alas! they know or heed.
How far these beauties her exceed.
Fair trees! whe'er your barks I wound.
No name shall but your own be found.
Another convention is turned over - the green trees are more amorous than the white and red which symbolise feminine beauty (remember all those Petrarchan red &white roses of the cheeks-? yuck!) Green - the colour of the garden, symbolises hope, transcendence and life and the author criticises the practice lovers had of carving their & their ladies' initials on trees (that's what they did in times when spray paint wasn't known). Should anybody carve on a tree, he had better carve the tree's own name: that is e.g. Oak tree instead of X.Y.
When we have run our passion's heat.
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods that mortal beauty chase.
Still in a tree did end their race:.
Apollo hunted Daphne so.
Only that she might laurel grow.
And Pan did after Syrinx speed.
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.
What the garden does is the clarifying the mind's view of its desires and purposes, it reveals our true motives. Later - a reference to Ovid's Metamorphoses. Apollo fell for Daphne, who ran from him and in the end turned into the laurel, which later became A's favourite plant. The story of Pan and Syrinx is similar only that Syrinx fell off the cliff and turned into the reed, out of which Pan made his flute. Marvell says that poth Pan and Apollo were after the plants - not the women. The lines The gods that mortal beauty chase/ Still in a tree did end their race might refer either to the mythology, or the pagan cult of trees or the Tree which served to make Christ's cross - a theme present in Dream of th Rood.
What wondrous life is this I lead!.
Ripe apples drop about my head.
The luscious clusters of the vine.
Upon my mouth do crush their wine.
The nectarine and curious peach.
