Named source · 1681

To His Coy Mistress Quotes by Andrew Marvell: Context & Meanings

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Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime.

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“Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime.”

Andrew Marvell

Meaning & context

Marvell’s speaker begins a carpe-diem argument by imagining unlimited time, using that impossible condition to prepare his later case for acting before mortality closes opportunity.

Source details

“To His Coy Mistress,” posthumously published in Miscellaneous Poems (1681), represented by Representative Poetry Online. The poem is a dramatic seduction argument by a speaker, not neutral advice about consent, relationships or urgency.

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