Time Is Always Running Out

Essay by bradford842College, UndergraduateA, November 2014

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Bradley Reilly

Mr. Block

ENG 102 G02

10/01/14

Time Is Always Running Out

Many readers believe Andrew Marvell's, "To His Coy Mistress", is one of the most celebrated love poems in English literature. Others might say this poem's theme isn't about love, but rather it's a carpe diem, which means to "seize the day". Time is not forever and if we wait to show our love, it may be too late. One critic went as far as to say this poem is all about sex and seduction towards his mistress. That's the beauty of poetry; so many different interpretations can come from a single poem. The true message Marvell wants to get across to the reader is simply to live your life to the fullest with no regrets before time catches up to you and it is forever lost.

In the poem, the speaker opens up by telling his mistress that if they had "but world enough, and time, this coyness, lady, were no crime" (Lines 1-2).

The speaker is telling the reader in these lines that this life we are all living can end at any given time and this world is not here forever. Time must not be wasted on coyness and flirtation, but rather we must be real with one another and tell each other how we truly feel. The speaker is telling his mistress that only in an eternal life would her coyness be no crime. For if time was nothing and eternity was real, then there would be no urgency at all. "We would sit down, and think which way to walk, and pass our long love's day" (Lines 3-4). Just imagine a world where you had the time to analyze every thought that goes into something as simple as deciding which...