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
Metaphysical poets poem has been cited as manifesting “the extremes of the metaphysical style”, but in this it sits well with others there that are like it: John Denham’s “Elegy on the death of Henry Lord Hastings”, for example, or Marvell's rather smoother “Upon the death of the Lord Hastings”. The several correspondences among the poems there are sometimes explained as the result of the book's making a covert Royalist statement. In the political circumstances following the recent beheading of the king, it was wise to dissemble grief for him while mourning another under the obscure and closely wrought arguments typical of