To His Coy Mistress To His Coy Mistress "To His Coy Mistress" is a metaphysical poem written by the English author and politician Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) either during or just before the English Interregnum (1649–60). It was published posthumously in 1681. This poem is considered one of Marvell's finest and is possibly the best recognized carpe diem poem in English. Although the date of its composition is not known, it may have been written in the early 1650s. At that time, Marvell was serving as a tutor to the daughter of the retired commander of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax. The speaker
Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed W. Gransden sees this excerpt as an “analogy from Elizabethan navigation and discovery, by which means he [the speaker] depicts the lover's journey to consummation in the most modern possible fashion. Donne neatly hits the traditional estimate of love by expressing it in terms of an adventure”. Here, Gransden commends Donne’s comparison of sexual intercourse to an adventure, which was a modern way for his speaker to coax the mistress into bed. Donne's metaphysical conceit also dabbles in gendered power dynamics of early modern England. Ilona Bell suggests that "If the woman is [the speaker's] kingdom and his empire, he