To His Coy Mistress
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
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| Griselda, 1910 by Maxfield Parrish The model was Susan Lewin, Parrish's lifelong companion and model. It remain a mystery if she was more than that. |
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd 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.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Parrish & Poetry: A Gift of Words and Art, Compiled and edited by Laurence S. and Judy goffman Cutler, Pomegranate Art Books, 1995. [Paintings by Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) accompanied by classic poems, many were favorites of the artist]
I read this poem for the first time in my Survey of English Literature in college. It was pretty racy stuff I thought, to be coming out of the 17th century...seduction of a virgin...but couched in such lyrical couplets. I enjoyed the sly humor; the lavish praise of her beauty and concern for her virtue which quickly changed to, "but we really don't have time for that." Here was carpe diem at work again. We could wait, perhaps, but the worms will get us....the grave is not a place for love or lust.
It came to me that there was some consistency through time in the workings of men and women. Just the previous weekend I'd had a similar request, but without the couplets.
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