Coy Mistress
Coy Mistress
2a Lady does not seize the day.
3I trust that brief Time will unfold
4our youth, before he makes us old.
5How could we two write lines of rhyme
6were we not fond of numbered Time
7and grateful to the vast and sweet
8trials his days will make us meet:
9The Grave's not just the body's curse;
10no skeleton can pen a verse!
11So while this numbered World we see,
12let's sweeten Time with poetry,
13and Time, in turn, may sweeten Love
14and give us time our love to prove.
15You've praised my eyes, forehead, breast:
16you've all our lives to praise the rest.
Notes
1] "`Coy Mistress' is an imaginary response to Andrew Marvell's famous seduction poem: "The grave's a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace .... 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 ...:'" (poet's note). Back to Line
Publication Notes
Eve (Brownsville, Oregon: Story Line Press, 1997): 41. Princeton University Library PS 3556 .I448
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
Special Copyright
<b>This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of Annie Finch or Story Line Press permissions department.</b>