‘The Sun Rising’ describes two lovers being awakened by the rising sun, to which the lover is justly perturbed. He portrays this by saying, ‘Busy old fool, unruly sun’, letting out his frustration on the unwelcome intruder. Donne takes this idea and then expands on it, ‘saucy, pedantic wretch’, showing the sun is being rude for intruding on their privacy. Even though he does want the sun to leave them alone, ‘I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink’, he does not want to lose the beautiful sight of lover, ‘but I would not lose her sight so long’. In the last stanza the man begins to accept the sun, there is a mutual agreement between the two. ‘Since thy duties be to warm the world…shine here to us and thou art everywhere’. He sees the sun as just doing his job and that it could not help but intrude on the lovers, as its radiant light shines everywhere.
‘My vegetable love should grow’, uses a conceit to show time in a metaphorical sense. These words create an image of slow growing, tendered love that is always alive. His forever love can be portrayed through the hyperbole, ‘vaster than empires and more slow’. Empires are seen to be strong, so he uses his love and compares its greatness to an empire. ‘The Rising Sun’, uses measures that are far more natural in order to portray the continuation if time. ‘Love all alike, no season knows nor clime, nor hours, days, months which are the rags of time’. Donne uses this to suggest when you are in love; time flows by quickly, often with no meaning. This would suggest two different types of love within these poems. ‘The Sun Rising’ shows people experiencing true love, their inability to leave one another. However, those in ‘To His Coy Mistress’ would suggest there is a one-way desire, as their meetings do not seem to be fully appreciated.
‘Two hundred years to adore each breast; but thirty thousand for the rest; an age at least to every part, and the last age should show your heart’. This shows a mistaken love between the two, instead of mentioning her breasts, the lover, if it was true love, would have mentioned her heart to start with. This shows a sexual attraction, desire, towards his lover rather than of true love.
Andrew Marvell uses the hyperbole, ‘before us lies deserts of vast eternity’. This tells us the love is never ending like a vast desert. This could mean the couple’s love is too vague, open or lost in the timeless horizon. This is a contrast to the relationship of the lovers in ‘The Rising Sun’. The reward of their love can be seen through the words, ‘thou sun art half as happy as we are’. These soft, loving words are then pursued by ones of dark and morbid images. ‘Then worms shall try that long preserved virginity’. This is saying the worms have more chance of touching her body before he does. ‘The graves a fine and private place, but none do there embrace’. This shows their relationship is fading; they must embrace before it is too late. This is a contrast to the ideas from ‘The Rising Sun’. They lover sees the bed ‘as thy centre’. This shows that his lover is the centre of his universe.
The final section of Marvell’s poem uses much harsher and aggressive language than the rest of his poem. Words such as ‘devour’, ‘tear’, and ‘rough strife’ add to the aggressiveness of ‘like amorous birds of prey’. These images are all callous and hostile and add another twist to his poem.
From reading these two poems and then contrasting them, I have come to a conclusion. I see ‘The Rising Sun’ by John Donne as two lovers who experience true love, as they cannot bear to be apart from one another. However, the lovers in ‘To His Coy Mistress’ seem to just be experiencing lust for on another. Their time together does not seem to be enjoyed, waited out in order to get something worthwhile in the end.