To His Coy Mistress

“To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell was posthumously published in 1681 as part of the collection Miscellaneous Poems. Marvell, a metaphysical poet, wrote this piece in Restoration England, probably after the English Civil War. Marvell’s canonical lyric works are well-known today but were unheard of during his lifetime. Like Emily Dickinson, none of Marvell's poems were published until after his death. However, some of his satirical and other prose works were published during his lifetime.

Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is his most famous poem; it is quoted in many other poems, books, and visual media properties. As a carpe diem poem, it argues that the speaker’s beloved should seize the day and engage in romantic activities. The premises for this argument include the inevitability of death and the destructive power of time. Marvell uses rhymed couplets and 46 iambic tetrameter lines, which is slightly longer than a standard-sized modern page.

Poet Biography

Much of Andrew Marvell’s life remains a mystery. He was born in the Yorkshire town of Hull in 1621; his father was a Calvinist reverend. Marvell completed his B.A. from Cambridge in 1639 and began a M.A., but left the university after his father’s death.