My brother recently sent me a beautiful poem To his Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell. Marvell was arguably the most perceptive metaphysical English poet of the 17th century. Unfortunately, I never had an occasion to read any of his works till I saw this poem.
I read the poem over and over again till its magic completely overwhelmed me. It was delightfully sensuous to the point of being transcendental.
It evoked memories of the good old days when I was a student of the NREC College. Professor Bannerji was lecturing us on T S Eliot's Wasteland. During the lecture he remarked that Eliot was hugely influenced by Andrew Marvell. He observed that the line, "But at my back from time to time I hear..." in T S Eliot's Wasteland was almost literally picked up from Marvell's famous poem To his Coy Mistress.
My brain retained that line, as it did large portions of Wasteland. I do not know why. Possibly because T S Eliot was my favorite poet, or maybe because it was fashionable in those days to quote from Eliot and Ezra Pound.
Now, when I saw Marvell's beautiful poem, I was reminded of those days when some of us in the English class honestly believed that we alone represented the intellectual and literary life in that little, sleepy provincial town. It was a kind of conceit which comes easily if you do not know much and understand still less.
Read the first two lines of the second stanza of Marvell's poem:
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near
Then see Eliot's line from Wasteland:
But at my back from time to time I hear...
The similarity between Eliot's line and Marvell's is obvious. Too striking to be coincidental. I can now see clearly what our professor meant when he said that Eliot's Wasteland was influenced by Andrew Marvell.
The poem To his Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell is reproduced below:
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 winged 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 preserv'd 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 am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
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