To His Coy Mistress

This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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To His Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell

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"To His Coy Mistress" is a poem written by the British author and Puritan statesman Andrew Marvell (1621 – 1678) either during or just before the Interregnum. The poem is often considered one of the finest and most concise carpe diem arguments ever put in verse.

Marvell probably wrote the poem prior to serving in Oliver Cromwell's government as a minister, and the poem was not published in his lifetime. Warning: template has been deprecated.

1996To His Coy MistressAndrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time,This coyness, lady, were no crime.We would sit down, and think which wayTo walk, and pass our long love's day.Thou by the Indian Ganges' sideShouldst rubies find; I by the tideOf Humber would complain. I wouldLove you ten years before the flood,And you should, if you please, refuseTill the conversion of the Jews.My vegetable love should growVaster than empires, and more slow;An hundred years should go to praiseThine 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 hearTime's winged chariot hurrying near;And yonder all before us lieDeserts of vast eternity.Thy beauty shall no more be found,Nor, in thy marble vault shall soundMy echoing song; then worms shall tryThat 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 hueSits on thy skin like morning dew,And while thy willing soul transpiresAt 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 devourThan languish in his slow-chapped power.Let us roll all our strength and allOur sweetness up into one ball,And tear our pleasures with rough strifeThorough the iron gates of life.Thus, though we cannot make our sunStand still, yet we will make him run.