To His Coy Mistress

"We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day."
"To His Coy Mistress"
Andrew Marvell


I decided to look up the word "coy" because I still didn't really understand what it exactly meant..so dictionary.com says it is "slyly hesitant," and "showing reluctance." This means that the tone of the speaker is urgent toward the coy mistress. The speaker talks about how much he loves her and how there is not even enough time to begin to explain how much this woman means to him. On the other hand, she seems to prefer a slower pace, and she is more reluctant to express undying love for him. I'm guessing that the speaker wants to marry this woman, or run away with her pretty much ASAP. As of now, their relationship is compared to "vegetable love. This most likely means that it's very unchanging and predictable, and it's not really going anywhere. The speaker wants it to grow which is why he urges the mistress to basically give up her virginity. ("that long-preserved virginity") This poem seems to be the opposite of "Getting Out" because this relationship is technically just meeting its beginning, while the other was meeting its end.