Andrew Marvell (31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678)
Andrew Marvell was an
English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician. He sat in the House of
Commons at various points from 1659 – 1678 and during the Commonwealth period, he
was a good friend of John Milton. Some of his most notable works include ‘To
His Coy Mistress’, ‘The Garden’ and ‘An Horatian Ode’.
Marvell was born in Winestead-in-Holderness, near the city
of Kingston upon Hull. Born to a Church of England clergy man also named Andrew
Marvell, the family moved to Hull after his father was appointed Lecturer at
the Holy Trinity Church, and Marvell attended Hull Grammar School. At just 13
years old, Marvell earned a BA degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. His
first poems, published in Latin and Greek whilst he still attended Cambridge,
lamented a visitation of the plague and celebrated the birth of a child to King
Charles I. After the death of his father in 1641 as a result of drowning,
Marvell travelled extensively on the continent, learning new languages and
missing the English civil wars in the process.
Marvell spent most of the 1650s as a tutor, first for Mary
Fairfax, the daughter of a retired Cromwellian general, and then for one of
Oliver Cromwell’s wards. In 1657, Marvell was appointed John Milton’s Latin
Secretary, a post that he held until Marvell was elected for Parliament in
1660. He held office during Cromwell’s government and represented Hull during
the Restoration period. Holding a very publicised position of power during a
time of tremendous political turmoil and upheaval almost led Marvell away from
publication for good. Nothing escaped his satirical eye; he criticised both the
court and parliament. If certain poems, such as ‘Tom May’s Death’, had been
published in his lifetime, Marvell would’ve been extremely unpopular with
royalists and republicans.
He died rather suddenly in 1678 due to a fever, and many of
his works were published in the following three years after his death. A woman
of the name Mary Palmer, Marvell’s housekeeper, had claimed to be his wife,
apparently, in order to keep his small estate from the creditors of his
business partners.
Marvell’s style has been described as “more than a technical
accomplishment; it is, what we have designated tentatively as wit, a tough
reasonableness beneath the slight lyric grace”. One of his most famous poems, ‘To
His Coy Mistress’, fits the conventions of metaphysical poetry with the
combination of an old poetic conceit with Marvell’s typically vibrant imagery
and easy command of rhyming couplets. Other works of his include topical satire
and religious themes.
'To His Coy Mistress'
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 wingèd 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-preserved 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 amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.