This means he would have lots of love for her, and it would be natural and organic. But it also implies that his ‘vegetable’ would grow very big, and he’s boasting to her about it. He’s trying to subconsciously get the lady to think in a sexual way. The same goes with:
“Two thousand to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest”
He’s gradually praising her body; her forehead and eyes, then her breasts, and then ‘the rest’. Working his way downward, this would imply her groin area – again, trying to get her to think sexually.
These phrases with more then one meaning are called ‘double ententres’ or double meanings. Marvell uses them all though the poem.
The ‘But’ section of the poem says that they don’t have forever because everyone’s going to die eventually:
“But at my back I always hear
Times wingèd chariot hurrying near”
The rhythm of this couplet is especially clever, as it mimics a galloping pace – ‘times wingèd chariot’. Another good example of rhythm is:
“The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace”
This one is bouncy and more joking, a bit sarcastic maybe. It says that the grave’s nice enough, and quiet, but that no one meets a lover there.
This section of the poem also contains a nasty idea, possibly to scare the girl:
“Then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity”
This means that if she dies a virgin, then no one will have sex with her after she’s dead, and the only things in that area will be worms.
The therefore section of the poem says that they should have fun while they can:
“Now let us sport us while we may”
He thinks that they should have sex now, because who knows how long they’ll be around? He says it would be better to do what you wanted, and live for a short time, than to live for a long time not doing what you want:
“Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapped power”
Another good example of rhythm in this section is:
“Thus, though we cannot make our sun,
Stand still, yet we will make him run”
The words ‘stand still’ make you slow down in your reading, giving a more ‘still’ effect.
The poem is written with each line having eight syllables, with four beats. The poem is arranged in rhyming couplets.
The tone of the poem is flattering to start with, but becomes scaring and ironic in the middle, and energetic towards the end.
‘The Sun Rising’ is also narrated by a man, who is annoyed with the sun for waking him up when he’s in bed with his lover, who means everything to him. In the first stanza, the guy is annoyed, and telling the sun to go away, because lovers don’t need to get up when they’re told to:
“Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Though windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?”
Love is more important than time, and above all that:
“Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.”
In the second stanza, the guy says the suns not that brilliant:
“Thy beams, so reverend and strong,
Why shouldst thy think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long”
He says he would prove that he could shut the sun out by closing his eyes, but that then he wouldn’t be able to see his girl, who is so wonderful, as he says in the third stanza:
“She’s all States, and all Princes, I:
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us, compared to this.
All honour’s mimic; all wealth alchemy.”
He means nothing else is important because between him and his girl, they are everything. He goes on to say that the sun should be happy that the entire world is in one place. The sun is old, and has to warm the world. If the world’s all in one place, then the sun only has to warm place in one room.
“Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.”
This poem is set out in three stanzas of ten lines, each with a very definite, set rhyming pattern – a, b, b, a, c, d, c, d, e, e – where a rhymes with a, b rhymes with b etc.
The tone of voice the guy uses in this poem starts of angry and irritable, but becomes joking and ironic towards the second half of the poem.
