Also I believe that ‘Lay your sleeping head my love’ may not be persuading as such however it is more a discussion of what other people’s opinions are
“And fashionable madmen raise: Their pedantic boring cry”
I believe that this shows that the relationship between the poet and his lover is almost certainly opposed by another party of parties whom wish to break up the relationship over superficial problems, W.H Auden however strongly dislikes them and ignores their comments about the relationship hence
“Their pedantic boring cry”.
Meanwhile in ‘To his coy mistress’ the piece is more of persuasion to his mistress about the honesty of his love and to persuade her to do what his mistress is unwilling to do and there seems that the only objection is from his mistress and her obvious hesitance to losing her virginity and Marvell attempts to scare her into it by the threat of time itself being a factor. Auden also uses the thought of time when he talks of the stroke of midnight past. They also both contain an image of immortal, godly, Greek mythology and supernatural powers with references to Venus the Greek god of love, and references to immortality and thoughts upon the subject of the inadequacy of the length of human life in his coy mistress. It then goes on to talk of in the most wishful of thinking tone if he had all the time in the world he would spend his endless time upon:
“An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.
Two hundred to adore each breast:
But thirty thousand years to the rest.
And the last age shall show your heart”
Such exaggerations in my view work very well in the poem in expressing his feelings of lust for her and how he would love nothing more than to spend an eternity with her and exploring every part of his body over such a long time.
Lay your sleeping head my love is more of God like poem concentrating on godly powers and references to ‘universal love’ and ‘supernatural sympathy these thing were possibly of great relevance in Auden time yet there were different notions in Marvell’s times.
From this comparison one could come to the opinion that although the two poems may be similar in a few respects they are completely different in others noticeably that the perspective of which the poet was in fact writing from and his outlook and view on life.
It is my belief that Marvell acknowledged death and looked to impossible things such as immortality with much wistfulness while Auden was more interested in using the time he did have on earth to use for his lover and to enjoy life itself, while Marvell spent his time fearing the very thing that he was wasting. It is this sort of irony, which makes the comparison between these two great poets and their poems most fascinating
