To His Coy Mistress

Marvell’s metaphysical poem has 46 lines. Each line is written in iambic tetrameter: four stressed syllables and four unstressed syllables. Marvell presents 23 pairs of rhyming couplets in three sections: Lines 1, 21, and 33 are indented, marking the sections. “To His Coy Mistress,” as a carpe diem poem, seduces the speaker’s beloved to romantically seize the day together.

Section One (Lines 1-20)

In the first seven lines, the speaker creates an imaginary scenario of what love could look like without the constraints of time and geography. He (the “I” of the poem) articulates this hypothetical situation in the most famous line of this poem, Line 1: “Had we but world enough, and time.” This limitless situation allows time for the “lady” (Line 2) to play hard to get—to be coy. The unhurried lovers can dawdle and go for long, separate walks on riverbanks. After spurning the speaker, his mistress would look for rubies by the Ganges. The speaker would pine for her beside “Humber” (Line 7), a river located in Marvell’s hometown, indicating the author is (quite likely) the speaker.

At the end of Line 7, the speaker focuses on the declarations of love and beauty he would make in the imaginary space.