What a Marvell

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

To his Coy Mistress

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 winged 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 preserv'd 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 am'rous birds of prey,

39 Rather at once our time devour,

40 Than languish in his slow-chapp'd 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 Thorough the iron gates of life.

45 Thus, though we cannot make our sun

46 Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Notes

7] Humber: Hull, where Marvell lived as a boy, and which he represented as an M.P. for nearly twenty years from 1659, is on the river Humber.

10] The conversion of the Jews was to take place just before the end of the world.

11] vegetable love: that of his "vegetable" soul.

29] quaint: elegant, artificial.

34] dew. The original reading is "glew," which has been justified as meaning "glow."

36] instant: immediate and urgent.

40] slow-chapp'd: i.e., with slow-devouring jaws.