To His Coy Mistress

As a metaphysical poem, “To His Coy Mistress” seeks to unify the metaphysical and the physical: the soul and the body. If the lovers were immortal, the speaker would devote “An age at least to every part” (Line 17) of the woman’s body. “Age” functions as the length of time he will spend in praise, but also links an immaterial concept of time to a tangible piece of anatomy. Rather than characterizing the body as a sinful place or inconsequential when compared to the metaphysical, Marvell says the body “deserve[s]” (Line 19) this rapt, epochal attention.

After presenting the reality that their time is finite, Marvell returns to the unification of the physical and spiritual. The speaker connects the lady’s skin with her soul. First, the youthfulness of her skin is presented as a “dew” (Line 34). Marvell says the “willing soul transpires / At every pore with instant fires” (Lines 35-36). The complex metaphor at work here uses the botanical meaning of the verb “transpires”: a plant giving off water vapor. The soul vaporizes the dew of youth, expelling itself through the pores. This makes the skin itself infused with the soul. In layman's terms, the body is covered with spiritual sweat.