To their coy mistresses: two poems about the arts of seduction

Andrew Marvell, from ‘To His Coy Mistress’

But at my back I always hear
Times winged chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found:
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song. Then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

This is the middle stanza of Marvell’s poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’, which I imagine many will know well. The first stanza begins ‘Had we but world enough and time…’ and the third is a plea to ‘tear our pleasures with rough strife, / Through the iron gates of life’. It must be the classic carpe diem poem in the English language. Life is short, gather ye rose-buds while ye may, we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got (thank you Bon Jovi), and all that.