Andrew Marvell

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 Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side
Should'st 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

Conversion of the Jews

Medieval theology treated this as an end-times event—literally never happening. Marvell uses it as a joke: he'd wait until doomsday itself. The specificity matters: he's not being romantic, he's being absurd.

Till the Conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable Love should grow

vegetable Love

In 17th-century philosophy, 'vegetable' means the lowest form of life—plants that merely grow without thought or movement. Marvell is calling his hypothetical endless love mindless and passive, which undercuts the flattery.

Vaster then 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.

Times winged Charriot

Chariots don't fly—this is Marvell's invention. The oxymoron forces time into something both majestic and threatening. The speed is sudden; he shifts tone here from flattery to urgency.

But at my back I alwaies hear
Times winged Charriot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lye
Desarts of vast Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My ecchoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv'd Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to dust;
And into ashes all my Lust.
The Grave's a fine and private place,

fine and private place

This sounds almost peaceful—but the punchline comes next: no one embraces there. Marvell uses formal, almost polite language to describe death, then undercuts it with isolation.

But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hew

morning glew

'Glew' (glue) is unusual—beauty isn't sticky or adhesive. This suggests her youth is temporary, barely holding on. The word choice reinforces his argument about time's erosion.

Sits on thy skin like morning glew,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,

am'rous birds of prey

Not doves or songbirds—predators. Love here is violent consumption, not tenderness. He's openly reframing desire as aggression after the death imagery.

Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow'r.
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,

Iron gates of Life

Life itself becomes a fortress to assault. The physicality here—'tear,' 'rough strife'—matches the predator language. He's abandoned seduction for conquest.

Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Three-Part Argument: How Marvell Builds His Case

This poem is structured like a logical proof, not a love song. Part One (lines 1-20) establishes the hypothetical: 'If we had infinite time, your coyness would be fine—I'd spend centuries worshipping you.' Marvell uses absurdly specific numbers (100 years for eyes, 200 for breasts, 30,000 for the rest) to make the fantasy laughable. He's not actually flattering; he's showing how impossible his own premise is.

Part Two (lines 21-32) demolishes that premise. Time is real, not hypothetical. Death is certain. His tone shifts violently—from elaborate compliment to grotesque specificity about worms and decay. The famous line 'The Grave's a fine and private place, / But none I think do there embrace' uses formal politeness to describe isolation and death. This is where the poem's real argument lives: beauty doesn't survive, virginity doesn't matter in a grave, and all his hypothetical devotion becomes irrelevant.

Part Three (lines 33-46) draws the conclusion: therefore, act now. Notice the language shifts from courtly to violent—'birds of prey,' 'tear our Pleasures with rough strife,' 'Iron gates.' He's not asking nicely anymore; he's arguing that urgency justifies intensity. The final couplet—'we cannot make our Sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run'—reframes surrender to time as a kind of victory. You can't stop time, but you can spend it intensely.

Word Choice as Argument: Why 'Vegetable' and 'Worms' Matter

Marvell doesn't write like a typical love poet because he's not trying to seduce through beauty—he's trying to persuade through logic. His word choices are deliberately precise and often ugly. 'Vegetable Love' isn't romantic; it describes mindless growth, the lowest form of life. 'Worms shall try / That long preserv'd Virginity' is deliberately grotesque—not metaphorical decay but actual decomposition. These words do argumentative work: they make the hypothetical romance sound stupid and the physical reality sound horrifying.

The poem's persuasive power comes from this collision. Marvell shows you two options: endless, passive devotion (which is absurd) or urgent, active pleasure (which is violent but real). The language forces you to choose. By the final section, words like 'prey,' 'tear,' 'rough strife,' and 'Iron gates' have reframed desire as something fierce and consuming rather than gentle. He's not saying 'love me because I'm romantic'—he's saying 'act now because everything dies.' The argument is morbid, but the language makes it unavoidable.