Poetry Tuesday

I was never much of a flirt until I got married. Suddenly I went from quiet shy introverted Cat to a much more outgoing version of myself. While I'm far from extroverted, I am willing to open up and put myself out there a bit more. I'm willing to step out of my comfort zone and meet people. And now I find myself thinking about all that time I wasted not flirting or talking. All that fear and uncertainty that was misplaced.

Andrew Marvell tries to talk his Mistress into bed in this bawdy poem. Like Robert Merrick's immortal call to "Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May" in his poem To The Virgins, To Make Much of Time, Marvell urges to seize the day (and the sheets). It's a good lesson for every part of life, not just sex. Time is short, make much of life.

To His Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell

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 Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side.
Should'st 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 then 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 alwaies hear
Times winged Charriot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lye
Desarts of vast Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My ecchoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv'd Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to durst;
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 hew
Sits on thy skin like morning glew,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow'r.
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.