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An attempt at transcendence. The poet tries to eliminate the gap between himself and nature, which language cannot perfectly overcome. He imagines the perfect union between his soul and nature (“the boughs”). The next line includes a simile, describing his soul as “like a bird” that “sings”. The birdsong is an alternative language to speech or poetry which blends perfectly with nature. However, self-consciousness creeps into these lines because the lines rely on the poetic device of simile, and difference is built into comparison. The poet cannot escape the limitations of language.

Actually in this, the garlands in this case are natural ones provided

In the previous lines, the “palm, the oak, or bays” each signify something OTHER than themselves. In these lines, the poet suggests that the very act of picking the leaves to make these crowns, “upbraids” or destroys their natural purpose in the place of a symbolic (perhaps meaningless) purpose. He makes this suggestion by saying that a laborer would rather be rewarded by the natural shade that comes from “all flowers and all trees [uniting] | To weave the garlands of repose!” Rather than the unnatural weaving together of leaves into a symbolic garland which provides “short and narrow-vergèd shade” upon the head.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Ninth Ed., Vol. B The Sixteenth Century/ Early Seventeenth Century.

(6) “upbraid” footnote: reprove, chastise, undo
(7) “do close” footnote: unite, agree
(8) “repose” rest, tranquility, peace

Other readings of “vain” = beautiful, self-absorbed, futile, superficial or shallow

Other readings of “amaze” = experience awe/wonder, or be dazzled or lost – as if in a maze (linked to futility of “vainly”)

It is important to emphasize that the palm, the oak and bays (laurels) are SIGNIFIERS of military, civic, and poetic achievements respectively. The ability of poetic language to meaningfully signify the natural world is a theme Marvell explores and questions in this poem. In this poem, the space of the poem and the space of the garden are analogously linked (a hint of this is that The Poem is titled The Garden).

A theme that develops throughout the poem is that language cannot perfectly signify the natural world. In previous lines (45-46), the poet further suggests that the mind and language create worlds alternative to the natural world. So if within the mind of a single person, there is division between the natural world and the subjective mind’s version of the world, the solitary man in paradise already had a complicated, divided perception of the world. The world became further divided, further complicated (to the distress of the poet) with the introduction of Eve’s subjective mind. In other words, when Adam “live[d] in Paradise alone” “two paradises were in one” – meaning objective Paradise, and subjective Paradise determined by Adam’s mind/language. When Eve was created, her mind contained own subjective version of Paradise.

These lines are less a statement of blaming Eve for the Fall, and are more about how complicating her presence was in creating yet another gap between the solitary mind, the minds of others, and the natural world. The poet regards this to be a great obstacle to unifying the mind and natural world.