A fascination with many people is to go back in time, and live the simple life, or to gain something when they were younger. In the literary works of Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" and Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," time is expressed as an excuse to seize the day. In the poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," Herrick encourages young people to seize the day before it is too late. While Marvell in "To His Coy Mistress," uses time as an attempt to manipulate his coy mistress. Both poems share the common theme of mortality and the ever-pressing hand of time. "To His Coy Mistress" and "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" are both haunted by the passage of time, and advocate finding pleasure in the here and now.
In the Poem "To His Coy Mistress," there is a sense of time passing quickly. For the first stanza states "Had we but world enough and time"(1). Marvell uses the concept of time differently throughout his poem. First, he tells how many years he would spend loving his coy mistress if he were given the time. In lines 13-17 he states, "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"(Lines13-17). He explains to his mistress that if time allowed, he would spend hundreds of years just to admire her physical being. Next, Marvell uses the concept of time to persuade his mistress to become accessible to him. For example, in lines 17-24 Marvell gives examples of his mistress aging and how she will go to the grave with her pride if she .
doesn't give in soon. Finally, toward the end of poem Marvell expresses time in terms of here and now. He tells his coy mistress to be with him now while they are still young , for they can not hold back time. .
In the related poem "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time," Herrick argues that lovers need to seize the day because time is running out and youth is temporary.