Respond to a Reading: Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”
Read the poem “To His Coy Mistress” below and respond to the questions in the margin. When you are done, “submit” your response.
Andrew Marvell
Born in Yorkshire and educated at Cambridge, Andrew Marvell received an inheritance upon his father’s death that allowed him to spend four years traveling the Continent. Though not a Puritan himself, Marvell supported the Puritans’ cause during the English Civil War and held a number of posts during the Puritan regime, including that of assistant to the blind John Milton, Cromwell’s Latin secretary. In 1659, a year before the Restoration, Marvell was elected to Parliament, where he served until his death. Soon after the Restoration, Marvell expressed strong disagreements with the government in a series of outspoken and anonymously printed satires. It was for these satires, rather than for his many love poems, that he was primarily known in his own day.
Alliteration occurs when the initial sounds of a word are repeated in close succession. There is a striking amount of alliteration in the first four lines of this poem: “we/world,” “coyness/crime,” and “long/love’s.” What effect does the use of alliteration have on the tone or mood of the poem as the speaker attempts to woo his lover?
Marvell’s speaker refers to world geography with exotic locations including “by the Indian Ganges.” He also refers to biblical history with a reference to “the flood.” How might these images support his ultimate purpose?
By comparing his love to vegetative growth, what is he suggesting about the nature of his love?
How does the imagery of “worms,” “dust,” and “ashes” compare to the imagery in the first stanza of the poem? Why might he be employing these references to human decay and mortality here?
The speaker imagines a certain type of love in this last stanza with references to “fires” and “birds of prey.” How would you characterize it?
To His Coy Mistress
1
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.
2
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.
3
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An 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 wingèd 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
4
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor 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 the skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
5
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-chapped 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.