3.19: "To His Coy Mistress"

From the Middle Ages to the Early Eighteenth Century · LibreTexts

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    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.
    5  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
    10 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;
    15 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,
    20 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.
    25 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,
    30 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,
    35 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
    40 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:
    45 Thus, though we cannot make our sun
        Stand still, yet we will make him run.

    Andrew Marvell

     Work Cited

    Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress." The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Andrew Marvell, edited by Alexander B. Grosart, vol. 1, Cornell University Library, 2001, pp. 106-08. HathiTrust, (Public Domain).

    This page titled 3.19: "To His Coy Mistress" was last modified on Fri, 31 Jul 2026 23:29:22 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Kelsey Ford.