"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell.
The first lines of Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", states, "Had we but world enough, and time, /This coyness, lady were no crime" (1-2). The tone in this poem is a sense of urgency and consequences as the speaker moves the reader all the way through the argument of why now, not later.
Marvell sets the tempo with many key words for example, "flood", "desert", "eternity", (8 and 24). These are all major things, so the speaker is trying to present the vastness of the idea to his mistress; to change the coyness ideal of his mistress before it overwhelms her and she ends up alone. He also tries to portray to the mistress that there is no time, and there will be major consequences, and logic must prevail. He states that, "Now therefore, while the youthful hue/ Sits on thy skin like morning dew", he is telling the mistress that there is no better time than now to lose your virginity, and there will be consequences to lose it at a later time in life. This man argues that if life was eternal then it would be appropriate to keep her virginity, but since it is not, then it is appropriate for them to engage in sexual activity. He feels that they share a love so deep that sexual activity would make everything perfect. He is not taking her well being into consideration, while making these decisions about their relationship, because in the seventeenth century it was forbidden to have sex out of wedlock, and stiff penalties were imposed. This man is only displaying lust for this woman. If he really was in love with her he would be more considerate towards her feelings, and would be asking for her hand in marriage instead. .
