Andrew Marvell lived from 1621-1678. Today, this poem would be considered sexist. But nonetheless, it is ageless and timeless. I suppose if old Andy spoke that way to me today, I would enjoy the language and laugh out loud. For years, it was a favorite in schoolbooks and is one of the most parodied of poems (aside from “Casbianca,” which begins, “The boy stood on the burning deck, whence all had fled but he…”).
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
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
I always use this poem in my unit on literary theory/criticism with my 12th grade AP English classes. It works so well with so many critical lenses. Also, it’s a pretty fantastic piece of satire. (And a great way to discuss the etymology of the word ‘quaint’, a la Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale”.) Best Hallmark card never sent. 😉
This great standard of the literature texts–the one that defines, with “To the Virgins, to make much of Time” and Fitzgerald’s “Rubaiyat,” the Carpe Diem genre in English verse–contains what is, doubtless, one of the most graphic, obscene, and powerful lines ever penned in English:
then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity
It’s always amused me that the fundamentalists will get really bent out of shape about the slightest thing that is off color in a textbook but are too dense to get what Marvel’s speaker is describing here.
this is my favorite love poem! thank you Diane for including.
Leonie
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I teach this poem to my upper level high school ESL students, always around this time of year. It takes a bit to make a breakthrough, but when they do, they love it. As an activity, I have them write their own version, or invite the girls to write a response, always getting wonderful material from them.
I guess now I’ll have to be compliant, and trade Andrew Marvell in for Federal Reserve Bank Minutes – don’t laugh: David Coleman highly recommends them in the ELA standards – or job training manuals for the poverty wage jobs of the future.
Great poem, but as usual, those troublesome Jews rear their heads. I’m always reminded of the Lenny Bruce routine in which he says he’s tired of Jews denying that they killed Christ (I think this was around the time Pope John XXIII was forgiving/absolving Jews for that alleged crime). Bruce said, “Hey, it’s time to confess. We killed Him. My family. I found a note in the basement: “We killed Him.” Signed, Morty. You know why we killed him? Because he didn’t want to be a DOCTOR, that’s why!”
[for the irony impaired: the above is satirical. And my heritage is Jewish on both sides]