Marvell, << MAHR vuhl, >> Andrew (1621-1678), was perhaps the finest of the English metaphysical poets of the mid-1600’s. In addition to the influence of John Donne, Marvell also showed the influence of the English classical poet Ben Jonson. Marvell’s verse blends argumentative vigor with classical smoothness and control, a blend that critic and poet T. S. Eliot described as “a tough reasonableness beneath the slight lyric grace.”
Marvell’s best poems are a series of lyrics written about 1650. They include “The Garden” and “To His Coy Mistress.” The latter poem includes the famous lines:
Loading the player...Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime.
To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
and
But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near. …
It ends grandly:
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.
Marvell was born near Hall in Yorkshire on March 31, 1621. During the English Civil War that began in 1642, he supported Oliver Cromwell and assisted John Milton when Milton was a high government official. Marvell served in Parliament from 1659 to his death on Aug. 18, 1678. During his later years, he wrote political satire against the king and court.
