One must analyze tone, metaphor, diction, imagery and alliteration to understand the meaning of,
"To His Coy Mistress." Andrew Marvell uses all five tools to convey just how much passion the speaker
has for his mistress, Marvell uses all five tools in very tactful ways to convey his meaning.
To fully understand "To his Coy Mistress," one must understand what the tone of the poem is. Yet
to be clear there is no overlaying tone, there are three within the poem. Starting with the first section of the
poem the speaker begins to flatter his mistress, he flatters her to an almost outrageous extent, "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" (Lines: 13-16). His tone seems to coax and cajole his mistress. One can find that
he may be overdoing it when he promises to adore each part of her for an outrageous amount of time. Not
to mention he promises to adore each breast twice as long as her eyes. The tone found in the second section
is in sharp contrast to section one. His tone becomes sincere, he speaks of death and limited time, "And
your quaint honor turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust" (Lines: 29-30). He admits in this section that
they will both inevitably die; his point may be that they must live in the moment because soon it may be
over. In the final section his tone is again livelier, "And tear our pleasures with rough strife" (Line 43), but
this time his tone is absolutely passionate over his mistress. He is not being just playful any longer.
Metaphor shines through in each section of this poem. In the first section the speaker compares
his love to the way a vegetable grows, "My vegetable love should grow" (Line 11), he is telling his mistress
his love grows slow. This also has an ironic sense to it; later
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