Andrew MarvellÆs To His Coy Mistress is a poem in ABAB rhyme scheme that is divided into three stanzas for a total of 46 lines. In the first stanza the speaker informs his intended Lady how he would love her if time were no consideration. In the second stanza he warns her that time is fleeting and they are mortal. In the final stanza he maintains they need to have passionate sex, ôlike amorous birds of prey,ö to achieve the only victory of spirit mortals can have over time, i.e. mortality, (Marvell 38). MarvellÆs poem illustrates how women were viewed by men in his era as existing solely for their pleasure, particularly their sexual pleasure.
The speaker in MarvellÆs poem is quite crafty in his intentions of having a passionate sexual relationship with hir intended Lady. In the first stanza, the poem is filled with pastoral images and elegiac expression of feelings by the speaker. The speaker tells his Lady that if ôwe had but world enough, and time, / This coyness, Lady, were no crime,ö (Marvell, 1-2). First, the speaker assumes intimacy with the Lady, using the word ôweö at the outset of his appeal. Second, he associates her ôcoynessö with a ôcrime,ö since her coyness keeps him from what he most desires. In this way, we see he is dominating by assuming they are a pair and he is trying to make her feel bad she has remained aloof.
In his next image, the speaker informs his Lady they when they take a daylong walk sharing their love, ôThou by the Indian GangesÆ side à / I by the tide / Of Humberà,ö (Marvell, 5-7). The speaker then reverts back to the use of the word ôyouö to refer to his Lady, saying that he would love her but ôif you please, refuse / Till the conversion of the Jews,ö (Marvell, 9-10). We see that the first form of address he uses when he is conjuring up images of pastoral love, but he switches to the other form of address when he is discussing how she might be coy forever if tim...