Chapter Poems of The Collected Poems - Study Guide by Andrew Marvell

This poem is very invitational and reflects many courtly lyrics, its form is syllogistic (as illustrated in the paragraphs starting with "Had", "But" and "Now"). The concept behind the poem is that of ‘carpe diem’ – he is attempting to persuade his lover to give in to his charms or at least his words since she does not know what will happen in the future.

Within the poem Marvell blends sterile almost mathematical listings of his love’s beauties ("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.") with echoes of a Greek epigram ("Thy beauty shall no more be found / Nor in thy marble vault, shall sound / My echoing song").

The poem moves through stages: there is the initial placatory section in which he apologizes for having to persuade his lover to move so fast and blames it on the fact that time moves too fast ("Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, Lady, were no crime. He then progresses to describe an ideal way in which he could woo her if the did not have to move so fast, however, what is starkly obvious is that this is not Marvell’s own ideal: his is not to wait. The ideal that he describes is that which he believes his mistress believes in. In the penultimate section Marvell makes a covert threat to his mistress. He illustrates the point to her that there is little point in waiting and saving herself as if she dies before she has been able to enjoy life then her abstemiousness will have little point ("Then worms shall try / That thy long-preserved virginity, / And your quaint honour turn to dust." By the end of the poem Marvell has come up with a practical solution:

"Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball"

It seems that the only way for his mistress to enjoy life is to give into his wooing. Thus this unusual poem inverts a typical courtly love lyric – debasing and subordinating tradition and manners to base human emotions.