Life is short. In Andrew Marvell's poem, "To his Coy Mistress" the tone in the beginning is somewhat light and playful. He says "Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down and think which way, To walk, and pass our long love's day;" I think this shows the speakers attitude towards this younger woman. He seems to be an older man and knows enough of the world to realize that there is very little time in a man's life. He continues with this playful attitude until he gets to the second part. He then says " Thy Beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound, My echoing Song; then Worms shall try, That long preserv'd Virginity; And your quaint Honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my Lust." From these few lines I begin to see the seriousness of Marvell's poem. To me he is almost telling people that whatever you are going to do, with love, needs to be done now. People are going to be dead a lot longer than they are going to be alive. It gives me a very interesting perspective on a saying that I am sure everyone is aware of, Carpe Diem.
After I finished reading this poem I took a few minutes and got lost in my thoughts about it. I believe that Marvell is saying that someone should live life intensely and with no regret. I wish I could say that I have been living my life like Marvell suggests a life should be lived. I have a tattoo that says 'life won't wait' and lately I have been trying to live by that motto. I think that there are certain things in this world that humans get caught up in..like Facebook or friendship cliques. Most of these things will not matter in ten years or even 10 weeks to be completely honest. I think that what "To His Coy Mistress" main objective is to demonstrate the fact that this life is too short to take from granted.
I also think that this poem is rather amusing because of the image I get in my head when reading through this poem. I imagine a guy in a bar trying to pick up a girl and doing whatever he possibly can to get her. As the poem shifts from playful to serious and almost depressing, I imagine the speakers gets turned down by a beautiful young girl and is reminded of his age. Maybe that is just my wild imagination, but it is still an interesting thought.
