Selected Poems of Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
To His Coy Mistress [c. 1650]
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;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst 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 than 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 always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
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.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
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-chapp'd power.
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.
Questions for Discussion
1. The key theme(s) of the poem is/are
A) carpe diem
B) memento mori ("Remember your mortality.")
C) holy matrimony
D) both a and b
2. In the lines "Thou by the Indian Ganges' side / Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide / Of Humber would complain," what is the "Humber"?
A) The Indian Ocean
B) The English Channel
C) Lake Victoria
D) a river in England
3. In the lines "Thy beauty shall no more be found, / Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound / My echoing Song. . . .," the "marble vault" is a reference to
A) the grave and the Mistress's body
B) the Mistress's perfume
C) the Mistress's willingness to have sex
D) the speaker's home
4. Death seems a preoccupation of the speaker most likely because
A) he mourns his mother's death
B) he wants to seem sensitive to his "mistress"
C) during his time the plague accounted for thousands of deaths
D) both a and b
5. "Time's wingèd chariot" is an allusion to
A) Apollo
B) Ares
C) Zeus
D) Hermes
6. Which of the following do you learn about the speaker of this poem?
A) He is well educated
B) He is Jewish
C) He is savvy about fine wines
D) He is violent
7. At the end of the poem, the speaker says that he and his lover cannot make Time stand still, but they can
A) "enjoy the current day"
B) "outlast his cruel effects"
C) "make him run"
D) "run forward hand in hand"
8. In the lines "Rather at once our time devour / Than languish in his slow-chapped power," "his" refers to
A) the speaker
B) the king
C) time
D) a bird of prey
9. In the lines "But at my back I always hear / Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near; / And yonder all before us lie / Deserts of vast eternity," the "chariot" and the "deserts" are examples of
A) similes
B) feminine symbols
C) metaphors
D) understatement
10. The structure of the poem is
A) novelistic
B) a syllogism
C) free verse
D)14-line stanzas
11. Who wrote "To His Coy Mistress"?
A) Andrew Marvell
B) William Shakespeare
C) Alexander Pope
D) Lord Byron
12. The most prominent thematic motif(s) of the poem is/are
A) the sky and the dark cloud
B) the Wars of the Roses and King William's War
C) the space/time metaphors and sexuality
D) both a and b
13. In the title "To His Coy Mistress," "coy" means she is
A) already his lover
B) young and inexperienced
C) unwilling
D) married
14. What does the speaker offer in the third stanza as the logical conclusion to be drawn from the ideas presented in the first two stanzas?
A) one must preserve one's honor forever
B) love is too painful to be endured
C) they should love now because there is no tomorrow
D) they should repent of their sins
15. The theme of "To His Coy Mistress" is commonly expressed in which of the following Latin phrases?
A) per diem
B) caveat emptor
C) carpe diem
D) cave canem
16. Which of the following terms is closest in meaning to the word "coy" in the poem's title?
A) eager
B) unfaithful
C) hesitant
D) moralistic
17. How much time would the speaker like to spend praising his beloved's eyes?
A) a week
B) a hundred years
C) an hour
D) ten minutes
18. Which of these does he call "a fine and private place"?
A) his garden
B) his house
C) the grave
D) his bed
19. Which of the following paraphrases a statement in the poem?
A) Let's get married while we're still young and healthy.
B) Let's wait to have sex until after we're married.
C) Let's travel and see the world before we die.
D) Let me take your virginity before the worms do.
20. What does the speaker say he would do on walks with his love?
A) dream of their life together
B) find rubies
C) write songs lamenting the cruelty of love
D) hunt with his pet bird of prey
21. To what does the speaker compare eternity?
A) deserts
B) love
C) fires
D) ashes
22. According to the speaker, what does not happen in the grave?
A) Lovers do not embrace.
B) People do not say "I love you."
C) Love no longer can grow.
D)Memories cannot survive.
1D 2D 3A 4C 5A 6A 7C 8C 9C 10B 11A 12C 13C 14C 15C 16C 17B 18C 19D 20C 21A 22A
A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body
SOUL
O who shall, from this dungeon, raise
A soul enslav’d so many ways?
With bolts of bones, that fetter’d stands
In feet, and manacled in hands;
Here blinded with an eye, and there
Deaf with the drumming of an ear;
A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;
Tortur’d, besides each other part,
In a vain head, and double heart.
BODY
O who shall me deliver whole
From bonds of this tyrannic soul?
Which, stretch’d upright, impales me so
That mine own precipice I go;
And warms and moves this needless frame,
(A fever could but do the same)
And, wanting where its spite to try,
Has made me live to let me die.
A body that could never rest,
Since this ill spirit it possest.
SOUL
What magic could me thus confine
Within another’s grief to pine?
Where whatsoever it complain,
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain;
And all my care itself employs;
That to preserve which me destroys;
Constrain’d not only to endure
Diseases, but, what’s worse, the cure;
And ready oft the port to gain,
Am shipwreck’d into health again.
BODY
But physic yet could never reach
The maladies thou me dost teach;
Whom first the cramp of hope does tear,
And then the palsy shakes of fear;
The pestilence of love does heat,
Or hatred’s hidden ulcer eat;
Joy’s cheerful madness does perplex,
Or sorrow’s other madness vex;
Which knowledge forces me to know,
And memory will not forego.
What but a soul could have the wit
To build me up for sin so fit?
So architects do square and hew
Green trees that in the forest grew.
Questions for Discussion
1. The headings of the stanzas, Soul and Body, indicate which one of the two is
A) being addressed
B) acting as the deliver of the other
C) being described
D) winning the struggle at the moment
E) speaking
2. In the poem, which of the following best describes the relationship between the body and soul?
A) The body controls the soul.
B) The soul owns and manages the body.
C) They are separate and independent.
D) Each is subject to the demands of the other.
E) In time, they become completely unified.
3. Which of the following devices are dominant in the first stanza?
A) An extended metaphor of cruel imprisonment
B) An extended definition of the soul
C) Names of the parts of the body to represent the whole
D) Internal rhyme to emphasize the internal nature of the struggle
E) End-stopped lines to temper the urgency of the message
4. The notation of an eye that can blind and ear that can deafen (lines 5 - 6) suggests that the
A) Body is in fact in worse condition that the soul
B) Soul claims to have senses, but those senses fail
C) Eye and ear impede the soul’ s perception instead of aiding it
D) Eye and ear try continually to perceive the soul but never do
E) Fragile eye and ear are stronger than the soul
5. In the context of the first stanza, lines 1-2 express a longing to be
A) freed from an actual prison
B) separated from physical life
C) saved from eternal damnation
D) cured of a crippling ailment
E) released from enslavement to vice
6. Which of the following best sums up what is said in lines 13-14
A) The body would prefer death to the dictates of the soul.
B) The soul puts the body in position of always being a danger to itself.
C) The body becomes a danger to others when it ignored what the soul teaches.
D) The body is stepping-off place for any attempt to understand the nature of the soul.
E) The soul offers the body the chance to achieve new heights.
7. What does line 15 suggest about the nature of the soul?
A) It is the divine element in a person.
B) It is the source of evil as well as good.
C) It confuses by introducing conflicting emotions.
D) It is the animating force in a person.
E) It makes one conscious of physical sensations.
8. Which of the following best relates the question posed in lines 21-22?
A) What constrains me to suffer from experiences that are not naturally my own?
B) What can make me sorrow for the body in its ill state when I have no natural sympathy?
C) What struggle of good and evil makes me both cause the misfortunes of the body and then regret them?
D) Why must the body ultimately come to grief and I be saved?
E) Why must I dwell in another body after my original dwelling place has died?
9. Lines 25- 26 are best understood to mean that the
A) soul can neither care nor feel. And so the body has no reason to try to preserve it
B) body ignores the soul’s efforts to influence it
C) soul’s best attempts to exist in unity with the body end by killing the body
D) body refuses to recognize that it would not live without the soul
E) soul’s efforts are used by the body for its own maintenance and, consequently, for the ruination of the soul .
10. “Port” (line 29) refers metaphorically to
A) death
B) the body
C) the unity of body and soul
D) illness
E) hell
11. Which of the following best describes the effect of the metaphors in lines 31-36?
A) The likening of emotion to illness suggest that the soul and body are really one
B) The very number of ailments exaggerates the weakness of the body and the strength of the soul.
C) The mention of Leaching implies that knowing oneself well is the key to healing the breach between body and soul. .
D) The metaphors stress that the body perceives the emotions physically and, further, that it perceives only their negative effects.
E) The metaphors indicate that the obsession of the body with its own ailments keeps it from giving expression to the soul.
12. The last four lines, which extend the length of the last stanza, have the effect of
A) offering a solution to the dilemma of the body and soul
B) providing an epigrammatic summary of the body’ s view of the soul
C) providing comic relief from the serious conflict in the poem
D) breaking through the irony of the poem to reveal the whole person, body and soul combined
E) finally allowing the soul to argue back within a stanza devoted to the view of the body
13. Which of the following most fully expresses the cleverness of the body in its impingement on the soul?
A) “O who shall, from this Dungeon, raise / A Soul inslav’ d so many ways” (lines 1-2)
B) “And, wanting where its spite to try, / Has made me live to let me die.” (lines 17-18)
C) “And alt my care its self employs. / That to preserve, which me destroys.” (lines 25-26)
D) “But Physic yet could never re ach / The Maladies thou me dost teach.” (lines 31-32)
E) “ Which Knowledge forces me to know, / And Memory will not forgo.” (lines 39-40)
1e, 2d, 3a, 4c, 5b, 6b, 7d, 8a, 9e, 10a, 11d, 12b, 13c