Roman goddess of flowers

Marvell’s disturbing strategy with little T.C. is to get ‘em while they’re young

Come to terms

The “prospect” of the title could refer to either a landscape or a mental survey. As in many of Marvell’s poems, the line between the workings of the poem and the physical world they describe can blur

The plants can’t get enough of little T.C.

A lot of Marvell’s poetry happens in the “meantime” – as if the world were being held in suspension while he gets these lines down

Marvell doesn’t want to risk getting rejected; he’d rather chill in the shade and just see how things go down

From Petrarch on – or, really, ever since Medusa and basilisks arrived on the ancient Greek mythological scene – women’s eyes were seen as powerful, dangerous weapons, capable of turning men into stone, or worse

Saying that a woman’s eyes drove like wheels over men’s hearts could be an easy way for male poets to call women monsters for rejecting them, even if the women in question aren’t doing anything besides having eyes

Flags

Cupid, the god of love (usually portrayed these days as a chubby baby, but artists have also imagined him as quite…chiseled)