A Late Aubade Poem Analysis

Using Carpe Diem to Manipulate Women Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” and Richard Wilbur’s “A Late Aubade” all use the idea of seizing the day to seduce women. The first two poems address women who are resisting having sex and the poets are pressuring them to remember that time and their youth is fleeting and they’ll die virgin old maids if they don’t make love and get married while they are still young and attractive. Wilbur’s poem differs in that he has already made love to the woman he is talking to and is entreating her to stay in bed and not get up, saying that time spent in bed with him is the best use of her time. An aubade is a lover’s farewell song, usually sung at …show more content…
He tells his beloved that anything other than what they are doing at that moment would be a waste of time: “Think of all the time you are not Wasting” (Wilbur 13-14). Wilbur then expresses his gratitude that the hypothetical activities he describes are not “to [his lover’s] taste” because she would “rather lie in bed and kiss Than anything” (Wilbur 19-20). Wilbur then draws attention to the time, saying: “It’s almost noon, you say? If so, / Time flies, and I need not rehearse The rosebuds-theme of centuries of verse” (Wilbur 23-24). This is an allusion to Herrick’s “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” which states “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” (Herrick 1). Wilbur believes that losing track of time is proof of their love and feels it unnecessary to recite cliché poetry. The poem uses a reference to rosebuds to contrast that his woman is already a fully blossomed rose. Next, he says that if she absolutely must go, then she should “wait for a while, then slip downstairs / And bring us up some chilled white wine, / And some blue cheese, and crackers, and some fine Ruddy-skinned pears” (Wilbur 24-28). Wilbur uses his powers of persuasion to encourage his lover to forgo any other activities and if she must get out of bed, just go to the kitchen, get some food and drink, and come back with it.
Herrick’s “To the Virgin’s to Make Much of Time” …show more content…
However, unlike Wilbur, Marvell writes using the persona of another man. His verse form consists of rhymed couplets written in iambic tetrameter. The first stanza uses hyperbole to present an ideal courtship. He claims that he could love her from ten years before the Biblical flood, and she could refuse his advances until the “conversion of the Jews” (Marvell 10). The speaker uses “vegetable love” as a metaphor to say that his love will grow “vaster than empires, and more slow” (Marvell 11-12). He assures his mistress that he would never value her at a “lower rate” than she deserves, at least in an ideal world where “had we…but time” (Marvell 1; 20). The mood changes in the second stanza as the speaker makes it clear that they do not have time and that death is inevitable. The poem uses a subjunctive verb tense to convey that their situation contradicts reality: “Had we but world enough, and time,/ This coyness, lady, were no crime” (Marvell 1-2). He implores his mistress to make haste, saying that, once dead, both her virtues and beauty will lie in a “marble vault” along with her body (Marvell 26). As her body turns to dust, his lust will be reduced to ashes, and the chance for the two of them to join sexually will be lost forever. The rhyming of “dust” and “lust” highlights the choice the mistress must make. Marvell