Andrew Marvell: To His Coy Mistress (Poetry Revision Notes)
1. Had we but world enough and time,
2. This coyness, lady, were no crime.
3. We would sit down, and think which way
4. To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
5. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
6. Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
7. Of Humber would complain. I would
8. Love you ten years before the flood,
9. And you should, if you please, refuse
10.Till the conversion of the Jews.
11.My vegetable love should grow
12.Vaster than empires and more slow;
13.An hundred years should go to praise
14.Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
15.Two hundred to adore each breast,
16.But thirty thousand to the rest;
17.An age at least to every part,
18.And the last age should show your heart.
19.For, lady, you deserve this state,
20.Nor would I love at lower rate.
21. But at my back I always hear
22.Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
23.And yonder all before us lie
24.Deserts of vast eternity.
25.Thy beauty shall no more be found;
26.Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
27.My echoing song; then worms shall try
28.That long-preserved virginity,
29.And your quaint honour turn to dust,
30.And into ashes all my lust;
31.The grave’s a fine and private place,
32.But none, I think, do there embrace.
33. Now therefore, while the youthful hue
34.Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
35.And while thy willing soul transpires
36.At every pore with instant fires,
37.Now let us sport us while we may,
38.And now, like amorous birds of prey,
39.Rather at once our time devour
, 40.Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
41.Let us roll all our strength and all
42.Our sweetness up into one ball,
43.And tear our pleasures with rough strife
44.Through the iron gates of life:
45.Thus, though we cannot make our sun
46.Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Themes of pressure and shame, or love and desire?
Analysis
● Rhyming couplets create a musical feel
○ Romantic implications
○ A mix of full rhymes and half-rhymes / slight rhymes- consider if these
create different effects.
● Part of the carpe diem tradition
○ So-called carpe diem poems encourage an unspeaking audience to
‘seize the day’ and take action.
○ Marvell encourages the ‘coy mistress’ in question to enter into a
romance whilst she still possesses her youth and beauty
■ Consider how the poem (particularly through rhyme and rhythm)
creates a sense of urgency, adding to this message and
persuasion.
● Message
○ Starting lines
■ If time were not finite, the mistress would not need to panic
about quickly entering into a relationship
■ ‘Had we but world enough and time, / This coyness, lady, were
no crime.’ (Lines 1-2)
■ Main theme of lines 1-20
○ Middle
■ However, this ideal world does not exist. Time is a pressing
factor.
■ Focus on the pressure of time and how it limits the potential for
love and/or attraction
1. Had we but world enough and time,
2. This coyness, lady, were no crime.
3. We would sit down, and think which way
4. To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
5. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
6. Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
7. Of Humber would complain. I would
8. Love you ten years before the flood,
9. And you should, if you please, refuse
10.Till the conversion of the Jews.
11.My vegetable love should grow
12.Vaster than empires and more slow;
13.An hundred years should go to praise
14.Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
15.Two hundred to adore each breast,
16.But thirty thousand to the rest;
17.An age at least to every part,
18.And the last age should show your heart.
19.For, lady, you deserve this state,
20.Nor would I love at lower rate.
21. But at my back I always hear
22.Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
23.And yonder all before us lie
24.Deserts of vast eternity.
25.Thy beauty shall no more be found;
26.Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
27.My echoing song; then worms shall try
28.That long-preserved virginity,
29.And your quaint honour turn to dust,
30.And into ashes all my lust;
31.The grave’s a fine and private place,
32.But none, I think, do there embrace.
33. Now therefore, while the youthful hue
34.Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
35.And while thy willing soul transpires
36.At every pore with instant fires,
37.Now let us sport us while we may,
38.And now, like amorous birds of prey,
39.Rather at once our time devour
, 40.Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
41.Let us roll all our strength and all
42.Our sweetness up into one ball,
43.And tear our pleasures with rough strife
44.Through the iron gates of life:
45.Thus, though we cannot make our sun
46.Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Themes of pressure and shame, or love and desire?
Analysis
● Rhyming couplets create a musical feel
○ Romantic implications
○ A mix of full rhymes and half-rhymes / slight rhymes- consider if these
create different effects.
● Part of the carpe diem tradition
○ So-called carpe diem poems encourage an unspeaking audience to
‘seize the day’ and take action.
○ Marvell encourages the ‘coy mistress’ in question to enter into a
romance whilst she still possesses her youth and beauty
■ Consider how the poem (particularly through rhyme and rhythm)
creates a sense of urgency, adding to this message and
persuasion.
● Message
○ Starting lines
■ If time were not finite, the mistress would not need to panic
about quickly entering into a relationship
■ ‘Had we but world enough and time, / This coyness, lady, were
no crime.’ (Lines 1-2)
■ Main theme of lines 1-20
○ Middle
■ However, this ideal world does not exist. Time is a pressing
factor.
■ Focus on the pressure of time and how it limits the potential for
love and/or attraction
