To His Coy Mistress

In 'To His Coy Mistress,' Marvell uses hyperbolic language to exemplify his exaggeration of the distance between him and his lover. He begins the poem with a slow pace in the first stanza and begins to quicken in the second stanza and so on. His change of pace is determined by the 'pivots' in both the indents of the 2nd and 3rd stanzas. As the pace quickens so does the message Marvell tries to convey- carpe diem. The speaker demonstrates his urge to convince her to seize the day and to live her life like everyday is the last. Marvell's shift of 'tense' shows the urgency of time and how time is going by without any notice. Marvell expresses the message of carpe diem by stating, "Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in they marble vault, shall sound my echoing song;" (line 25-26). The speaker portrays that even though his lover's beauty is fading, love still exists and that she must seize everyday of her life regardless of her appearance.