To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
A hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
To His Coy Mistress
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
A hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
"To His Coy Mistress" is a metaphysical
poem written by the English author and
politician Andrew Marvell (16211678) either
during or just before theInterregnum.
This poem is considered one of Marvell's finest
and is possibly the best recognized carpe
diem poem in English. Although the date of its
composition is not known, it may have been
written in the early 1650s. At that time, Marvell
was serving as a tutor to the daughter of the
retired commander of the New Model Army, Sir
Thomas Fairfax.[1]
Contents
[hide]
1 Synopsis
2 Structure
3 Critical reception and themes
4 Allusions in other works
5 References
6 External links
Synopsis[edit]
The speaker of the poem addresses a woman
who has been slow to respond to his sexual
advances. In the first stanza he describes how
he would love her if he were to be
unencumbered by the constraints of a normal
lifespan. He could spend centuries admiring
each part of her body and her resistance to his
advances (i.e., coyness) would not discourage
him. In the second stanza, he laments how
short human life is. Once life is over, the
speaker contends, the opportunity to enjoy one
another is gone, as no one embraces in death.
In the last stanza, the speaker urges the woman
to requite his efforts, and argues that in loving
one another with passion they will both make
the most of the brief time they have to live.
Structure[edit]
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter and
rhymes in couplets. The first verse stanza ("Had
we...") is ten couplets long, the second
("But...") six, and the third ("Now therefore...")
seven. The logical form of the poem runs: if...
but... therefore...
Critical reception and themes[edit]
Until recently, To His Coy Mistress had been
received by many as a poem that follows the
traditional conventions of carpe diem love
poetry. However, some modern critics consider
Marvells use of complex and
ambiguous metaphors challenges the perceived
notions of the poem. It as well raises suspicion
of irony and deludes the reader with its
inappropriate and jarring imagery.[2]
Some critics believe the poem is an ironic
statement on sexual seduction. They reject the
idea that Marvells poem carries a serious and
solemn mood. Rather, the poems opening
linesHad we but world enough, and time/
This coyness, Lady, were no crimeseems to
suggest quite a whimsical tone of regret. In the
second part of the poem, there is a sudden
transition into imagery that involves graves,
marble vaults and worms. The narrators use of
such metaphors to depict a realistic and harsh
death that awaits the lovers seems to be a way
of shocking the lady into submission. As well,
critics note the sense of urgency of the narrator
in the poems third section, especially the
alarming comparison of the lovers to amorous
birds of prey. [1]
Allusions in other works[edit]
At least two poets have taken up the challenge
of responding to Marvell's poem in the
character of the lady so addressed. Annie
Finch's "Coy Mistress"[3] suggests that poetry is
a more fitting use of their time than
lovemaking, while A.D. Hope's "His Coy
Mistress to Mr. Marvell" turns down the
offered seduction outright.
Many authors have borrowed the phrase
"World enough and time" from the poem's
opening line to use in their book titles. The
most famous is Robert Penn Warren's 1950
novel World Enough and Time: A Romantic
Novel, about murder in early-19th
century Kentucky. With variations, it has also
been used for books on the philosophy of
physics (World Enough and Space-Time:
Absolute versus Relational Theories of Space
and Time), geopolitics (World Enough and
Time: Successful Strategies for Resource
Management), a science-fiction collection
(Worlds Enough & Time: Five Tales of
Speculative Fiction - Dan Simmons), a short
story by Terry Pratchett (#ifdefDEBUG +
"world/enough" + "time"), and, of course, a
biography (World Enough and Time: The Life of
Andrew Marvell). The verse serves as an
epigraph to Mimesis, literary critic Erich
Auerbach's most famous book.
Also in the field of science fiction, Ursula K. Le
Guin wrote a Hugo-nominated short story
whose title, "Vaster than Empires and More
Slow", derives from the poem. Ian
Watson notes the debt of this story to Marvell,
"whose complex and allusive poems are of a
later form of pastoral to that which I shall refer,
and, like Marvell, Le Guin's nature references
are, as I want to argue, "pastoral" in a much
more fundamental and interesting way than
this simplistic use of the term." [4] There are
other allusions to the poem in the field of
Fantasy and Science Fiction: the first book
of James Kahn's "New World Series" is titled
"World Enough, and Time;" and Peter S.
Beagle's novel A Fine and Private Place about a
love affair between two ghosts in a graveyard.
The latter phrase has been widely used as a
euphemism for the grave, and has formed the
title of several mystery novels.
The phrase "there will be time" occurs
repeatedly in a section of T. S. Eliot's "The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), and is often
said to be an allusion to Marvell's
poem.[citation needed] Prufrock says that
there will be time "for the yellow smoke that
slides along the street", time "to murder and
create", and time "for a hundred indecisions ...
Before the taking of a toast and tea". As Eliot's
hero is, in fact, putting off romance and
consummation, he is (falsely) answering
Marvell's speaker. Eliot also alludes to the lines
near the end of Marvell's poem, "Let us roll all
our strength and all / Our sweetness up into
one ball," with his lines, "To have squeezed the
universe into a ball / To roll it toward some
overwhelming question," as Prufrock questions
whether or not such an act of daring would
have been worth it. Eliot returns to Marvell
in The Waste Land with the lines "But at my
back in a cold blast I hear / The rattle of the
bones" (Part III, line 185) and "But at my back
from time to time I hear / The sound of horns
and motors" (Part III, line 196).
The line "deserts of vast eternity" is used in the
novel Orlando: A Biography, by Virginia Woolf,
which was published in 1928.
Archibald MacLeish's poem "You, Andrew
Marvell",[5][6] alludes to the passage of time
and to the growth and decline of empires. In his
poem, the speaker, lying on the ground at
sunset, feels "the rising of the night". He
visualizes sunset, moving from east to west
geographically, overtaking the great
civilizations of the past, and feels "how swift
how secretly/The shadow of the night comes
on."
B. F. Skinner quotes "But at my back i always
hear / time's winged chariot hurrying near",
through his character Professor Burris in
"Walden Two", who is in a confused mood of
desperation, lack of orientation, irresolution
and indecision. (Prentice Hall 1976, chapter 31,
p. 266). This line is also quoted in Ernest
Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms.
The same line appears in full in the opening
minutes of Michael Powell and Emeric
Pressburger's A Matter of Life and
Death (1946), spoken by the protagonist, pilot
and poet Peter Carter: 'But at my back I always
hear/Time's wingd chariot hurrying near; And
yonder all before us lie/Deserts of vast eternity.
Andy Marvell, What a Marvel'.

The metaphysical poets is a term coined by the
poet and critic Samuel Johnson to describe a
loose group of English lyric poets of the 17th
century, whose work was characterized by the
inventive use of conceits, and by speculation
about topics such as love or religion. These
poets were not formally affiliated; most of
them did not even know each other or read
each other's work.
The Interregnum was the period between
the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649
and the arrival of his son Charles II in London
on 29 May 1660 which marked the start of
the Restoration. During the Interregnum
England was under various forms of republican
government, for which see Commonwealth of
England; this article describes other facets of
the Interregnum.
Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism usually
translated "seize the day", taken from a poem
in the Odes (book 1, number 11) in 23 BC by the
poet Horace
Iambic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers
to a line consisting of four iambic feet. The
word "tetrameter" simply means that there are
four feet in the line; iambic tetrameter is a line
comprising four iambs.
Some poetic forms rely upon iambic
tetrameter: triolet, Onegin stanza, Memoriam
stanza, long measure (or long meter) ballad
stanza.
Quantitative verse[edit]
The term originally applied to the quantitative
meter of Classical Greek poetry, in which
an iamb consisted of a short syllable followed
by a long syllable.
Accentual-syllabic verse[edit]
The term was adopted to describe the
equivalent meter in accentual-syllabic verse, as
composed in English, German, Russian, and
other languages. Here, iamb refers to an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed
syllable. A line of iambic tetrameter consists of
four such feet in a row:

Andrew Marvell is often described as being a
metaphysical poet (using images and word play
to express complex ideas and feelings) as so
much of his poetry deals with ideas of existence
and truth. His poetry is also humorous, often
using satire to attack or mock others.
His poems are often centred on wealthier
people, that is, those at court - high up enough
in society to be around the monarch and those
in power.

The speaker of the poem is trying to convince
his "mistress" that they should seize the day
and not hold back from expressing their
feelings for each other, and so should sleep
together. The fact that this is something he is
proposing tells us the couple are not married.
Structure and language
Structure
The poem has three sections. In the
first stanza the ideal courtship is presented,
with extravagant references to the care and
devotion with which the speaker
would "woo" his lover "had we but time". The
second stanza makes it clear that they have not
got time, and that death is not only inevitable
but imminent. The final stanza proposes that
they fight against the progression of time and
seek pleasure while they are able.
The poem is written in rhyming couplets, a
popular format in rhyming poetry.
Language
In the first stanza there are humorously
exaggerated references to traditional romantic
ideas. He speaks of spending "An hundred
years" to "praise/Thine eyes"and "Two hundred
to adore each breast". This is all undermined by
the poem's opening words: "Had we but world
enough, and time". He is presenting a courtship
which may sound wonderful, but is one he
states from the outset is impossible.
Persuasively he tells his lover "you deserve this
state", even though he knows it is all an
exaggerated fantasy.

Images of death and decay are used in the
second stanza to show the lover the
pointlessness of resisting. Once dead "then
worms shall try/That long preserved virginity".
This disgusting image is intended to encourage
his lover to give her virginity to the speaker
rather than foolishly saving herself for
the "worms" when buried. He also makes a pun
of her "quaint honour", which could be seen as
a reference to her nave preservation of her
virginity even though death ("turn to dust") is
inevitable. It is also a reference to her body -
"quaint" was a euphemism for vagina around
the late 16th century - and the idea that in
death we become "dust".
The second stanza also echoes words from the
Christian burial tradition: "dust"and "ashes" are
both referred to and act as a reminder to the
mistress that life only has one outcome, so
waiting is pointless. The rhyming
of "dust" and "lust" on lines 29 and 30
effectively summarises the choice the mistress
must make.
The final line of the second stanza uses
parenthetical commas (commas used to
enclose thoughts) to convince us (and the
lover), that the speaker has logically reached a
conclusion: "The grave's a fine and private
place,/But none, I think, do there embrace".
This acts as a challenge; who would be
unreasonable enough to disagree with him?

The final stanza, in which the speaker grows
impatient to convince his mistress, is full of
references to speed, urgency and passion. The
simile "while the youthful hue/Sits on thy skin
like morning dew" restates the speaker's
desire, with a focus on his mistress' body.
The"morning dew" is also an effective simile in
that dew very quickly disappears as the day
advances, like her youthful appearance. He
suggests that "like amorous birds of prey"they
should "at once our time devour". This imagery
is quite animalistic, and hints at his barely-
contained desires. They should not, he thinks,
be waiting for death. He speaks of "instant
fires", meaning their feelings of desire, urging
his mistress that they should "sport us while we
may".
They should, he suggests "roll all our strength
and all/Our sweetness up into one ball". The
alliteration of the 's' sounds on the positive
words "strength" and"sweetness" are part of a
shift in the poem away from the negative
language of earlier to more active, more
enjoyable words and ideas.
Attitudes, themes and ideas
The poem in many ways challenges religious,
particularly Christian, ideas. He speaks of
making the most of life because "yonder all
before us lie/Deserts of vast eternity". After
life, he suggests, is nothing. Waiting and
resisting urges in life is pointless, he suggests.

In poetry, especially love poetry, time is
personified as being the enemy of lovers. Time
will bring death, the awareness of which is
always with the speaker: "at my back I always
hear/Time's winged chariot hurrying near". A
chariot is an old type of carriage pulled by
horses, commonly associated with war. The
final couplet is hopeful of the lovers' chances of
making the most of life: "though we cannot
make our sun/Stand still, yet we will make him
run". The word "will" is definite; the couplet
acknowledges that time and death are
inevitable, whilst at the same time suggesting
that action and determination are the best
approaches.
The poem is a famous example of the classical
idea of "carpe diem" or "seize the day". The
speaker is urging his mistress to make the best
of life by living it to the full and not simply
waiting - pointlessly denying pleasures - for
death. This idea clashes with one of the popular
movements of the 17th century, Puritanism,
which emphasised the importance of denying
personal pleasures (especially those considered
in any way sinful), and the simple worshipping
of God.
Comparison
Hour
Hour is also about the preciousness of time to
lovers, and presents the idea that time is a
force which is against lovers.
Sonnet 43
To His Coy Mistress contrasts with Sonnet 43 in
that this is a poem about the power and
urgency of desire rather than the purity of love.

Sample question
In your exam you will be asked to compare a
certain aspect of one poem with another. In
order to do this, we need to get to know this
poem a bit better by considering one of its
main aspects.
What follows is a sample question which
concentrates on one feature of the poem and
an answer (not necessarily complete!) to the
question.
Question
Discuss the relationships between men and
women in To His Coy Mistress andThe Farmer's
Bride, and the way in which they are presented.
Answer
Points you could make:
Both poems are about males trying to impose
their will on a female. In each, the female is
resistant to the relationship although the
reasons differ, and in each this resistance is
challenged by the male speakers.
To His Coy Mistress is an address to the
potential lover and is very sensual at times,
reflecting the feelings of the speaker for
his "mistress".
The Farmer's Bride is about the wife and is
much less positive in the references to her,
presenting her as a confused, scared animal
rather than an object of love and desire.
Both poems use vocabulary and punctuation to
reflect the feelings of the speakers, feelings
which are often intended to be kept hidden.