Discover Metaphysical Poets and Poetry

On August 16, 1678 Andrew Marvell, English poet died at the age of 57.

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;
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
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-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
- Andrew Marvell

An excerpt from the article:

"Andrew Marvell

Writer and politician Andrew Marvell's (1621 to 1678) poetry ranges from the dramatic monologue "To His Coy Mistress" to the praise-filled On Mr. Milton's “Paradise Lost”

Marvell was a secretary to John Milton who sided with Cromwell in the conflict between Parliamentarians and the Royalists that resulted in the execution of Charles I. Marvell served in the Parliament when Charles II was returned to power during the Restoration. When Milton was imprisoned, Marvell petitioned to have Milton freed.

Probably the most discussed conceit in any high school is in Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress." In this poem, the speaker expresses his love and uses the conceit of a “vegetable love” that suggests slow growth and, according to some literary critics, phallic or sexual growth.

"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;"
In another poem, "The Definition of Love", Marvell imagines that fate has placed two lovers as North Pole and the South Pole. Their love may be achieved if only two conditions are fulfilled, the fall of heaven and the folding of the Earth.

"Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere."
The collapse of the Earth to join lovers at the poles is a powerful example of hyperbole (deliberate exaggeration)."