Comparing To His Coy Mistress By Robert Herrick And Andrew Marvell

Learn to grasp the moment as time is always fleeting. In the poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” the speaker speaks to a group of virgins about how to make good use of their time while they are still young and in their prime. Similarly, the poem “To His Coy Mistress” the speaker in this poem tells the mistress how life is short and to have sex with him before they die. With both poems being written during the Renaissance period, they share similar aspects of time with each other. Although the poems by Robert Herrick and Andrew Marvell both addresses the matter of time being very short, their perception of time is portrayed differently through the use of rhyme schemes, imagery, and striking metaphors. To start with, a rhyme scheme is seen in both poems to elucidate how time is is short and moves quickly. In Herrick’s poem, he rhymes the words “flying” (2) and “dying” (4) to highlight how time is flying by too fast as the next day could already be death. Herrick suggests that if time is used up foolishly, then it can lead the next day to a slow death full of regrets. The perception of time seen in Marvell’s poem associates

Herrick illustrates in his poem “The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun” (5) which is supposed to represent a passage of time as it rises every morning and sets every night. With each rise, it inevitably reaches a high point where it has to set. Herrick expresses how the time of youth should be enjoyed while it still last. However, Marvell uses the image of “Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near” (22) to showcase how time perseus after everybody. Time is seen as a traveling vehicle that continues to go after people that makes no use of their time. Marvell highlights this idea to convey others of how to make good use of their time as time waits for nobody. The uses of imagery seen in both poems reveal that time is always moving forward and never