Man the Tyrant in Marvell's The Mower Against the Garden

     In his poem The Mower Against the Garden, Marvell's view of humanity in relation to nature is decidedly critical, something established within the first line ("Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use"). When compared to the order and beauty of nature, man is nothing but a defiler, seeking to establish his law of lust and vice to dominate it. Throughout the poem, this domination of nature is represented by the garden, something that binds and keeps nature locked inside, comparable to a prison. However, this is only the surface of the problem, and Marvell's problems with the mankind's rule over nature runs much deeper than the fact that nature has been essentially turned into mankind's plaything.
     This is established in line 27-28; "His green seraglio has its eunuchs too/Lest any tyrant him outdo". While 27 further explains the imagery of the garden as man essentially castrating nature, the hardest hitting line of the poem is definitely 28. According to Merriam Webster's dictionary, a tyrant is "a usurper of sovereignty". This comes from the classic meaning from the Greek root word tyrannos, which was usually the label used to describe the absolutist kings that would usurp the democratic nature of Athens. But what who exactly is man usurping control of nature from? 
     The answer is simple; in taking control of nature, man is usurping control of God's creation, the ultimately blasphemy one can commit. This is confirmed near the end of the poem, using the imagery of the classical gods of ancient Greece; "The Gods themselves within us do dwell." In addition to connecting back to the classical definition of the word tyrant, it confirms that man has wrested control of the divine from God, defiling all that he created.