Poetry 2

These poems are smooth and velvety, eloquent and delicate. They both share an equal message, but deliver them through completely different strategies. Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" emphasizes the idea that life is fragile and life is fleeting by urging his mistress to have sex with him. This may seem like a strange theme, but there's no way the purpose of this was to just lower the inhibitions of a beautiful woman. Instead, Marvell repeatedly emphasizes how short life can be in quotes like "Had we but world enough, and time." Thus, the speaker is basically saying "life is short, so plz have sex with me" to the woman he loves. The same goes for "You, Andrew Marvell." While it has nothing to do with making love, it still pushes the notion of enjoying life while you can. Not through sex, but this time through nature. "And here face down beneath the sun/ And here upon earth's noonward height/ to fell the always coming on/ the always rising of the night." I think this beginning shows the stark contrast between the "always" of earth's beauty and the limited time we each have here on earth.