The ‘But’ which marks the second section clearly show Marvell’s argument against spending time on what he regards as trivialities and a waste of youthful energy. The mythological image of ‘Time’s winged chariot hurrying near’ forces the reader to visualise the speed at which life passes. Death approaches and ‘deserts of vast eternity’ loom ahead; a depressing thought that is used to persuade the mistress that she should enjoy life to the full. His ideas turn more to lust than love as he intensifies his argument. The shocking image of the worms enjoying the lady’s virginity in the loneliness of the ‘marble vault’ make the urgency of his request apparent and this leads effectively onto the third section as he instructs her what she must do to enjoy life to the full.
‘Now’ marks the direct tone of the last section and his realistic attitude to relationships is revealed. Marvell strongly believes in ‘carpe diem’. His mistress should seize the day and make love whilst she is young and her soul is ‘willing’. The emphasis is on energetic love making, ‘now let us sport while we may’ and his advice in the last rhyming couplet is to enjoy every moment,
‘Thus though we cannot make our sun
stand still, yet we will make him run.’
A much more contemporary poem, ‘i wanna be yours’ by John Cooper Clarke also shows a man’s attempts to persuade his partner of his devotion. Unlike Marvell Clarke is not attempting to get his partner into bed but rather convince her of his loyalty to the relationship. The tone of the poem is far more lighthearted and chatty. The lack of punctuation marks makes it appear as a continual flow of ideas that the listener would find difficult to interrupt. Clarke associates himself with a number of household objects and their mundane uses as he offers to fulfil similar functions for his partner. Like a raincoat he will protect her and like an electric meter he will not run out. Clarke appears to believe that he should protect and look after his lover and unlike Marvell he spends time in flattering her. The metaphors that he chooses reflect his promise to be faithful and invaluable. All the objects chosen are conveniences of the modern world that make our lives more comfortable. The repetition of the plea, ‘let me be’ and ‘I wanna be yours’ shows his desperate attempts to convince her of his commitment to the relationship and he humbles himself as he hand over control of the relationship, ‘you call the shots’.
We are given the impression that he is responding to something that has happened to damage the relationship and that he is sorry for his actions. In the third stanza he offers to be an electric heater, making his partner’s life warm and comfortable. He repeats the word ‘deep’ to emphasise the intense love he has for the lady and in a powerful image he describes his love as being as deep as the ‘atlantic ocean’. This intensity of feeling leads us to the last two lines where Clarke subtly reveals the reasons for this emotional outburst,
‘i don’t wanna be hers
i wanna be yours.’
Up until these last two lines we could believe that Clarke was the faithful and devoted partner that Marvell refused to be but it is suggested quite clearly that he has ‘strayed’ and is now attempting to ‘win back’ his partner’s trust and affection.
‘One Flesh’ by Elizabeth Jennings is a very pessimistic view of love and shows that time can indeed damage the relationship between a man and woman. The poem could be seen to favour Marvell’s argument for seizing the day as Jennings has a very negative view of marriage in old age.
The title uses a biblical reference to suggest that a man and woman are united in matrimony. The first line contradicts this idea as we see a married couple ‘apart’ in ‘separate beds’. They no longer ‘roll their sweetness into one ball’ as Marvell prefers to do but occupy their time with different thoughts and activities,
‘He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,’
There is no ‘togetherness’ in their relationship and they, ‘hardly ever touch’. The fires of passion that Marvell mentions are now so ‘cool’.
The second stanza tells us that once there was feeling and life in the relationship but now,
‘Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion’
The simile effectively suggests that there is very little left of the relationship and the couple seem to be preparing themselves for some new event. Jennings recognises that there is no physical bond as if ‘their whole lives were a journey’ to the ‘deserts of vast eternity’ that Marvell so fears. Chastity faces them and time has killed all passion.
The last stanza shows that although the couple are physically separated they are united in marriage but like a thin thread it is a tenuous link. The poem grows more personal when Jennings reveals that it is her father and mother’s relationship that she contemplates and she asks, ‘Do they know they are old?’ The ‘fire’ from whence she came has now ‘grown cold’ and the passion that Marvell is so in favour of has indeed been lost in time.
The three poems show different views of love and relationships. Marvell clearly believes in strong physical contact and warns his mistress of the dangers of wasting time. Cooper Clarke shows complete and utter devotion to his partner; the emphasis being more on love than lust and Jennings reflects on her parents’ relationship and the lack of passion that seems so dreadful to her. One could say that each poem traces the stages of a relationship. Marvell’s text reflects the initial stages of a love affair when desire is clearly apparent, Cooper Clarke concerns himself with a relationship that is already established but experiencing difficulties that threaten its existence and Jennings mourns the loss of passion through old age.