In his final stanza, Donne becomes more extravagant, claiming "compar'd to this/All honor's mimique; All wealth alchemie". He explains his main point that the sun need not warm the whole earth anymore but just him and his lady - all that matters. Together, they are the world.
Donne's poem does not focus on his mistress as much as Marvell's - more on the all-powerful sun to which it is addressed. He tells the "unruly" sun to leave him and his lady alone to revel in their togetherness and wants to fully portray the extent of their love for each other. Donne tries to convince the sun by making it realise how beautiful his mistress is and understand how in-love they are so it will surrender to the overpowering and glorious joys of their sexual love. With the final two lines, straying from the traditional aubade, Donne makes an impossible request as he wills the sun to concentrate fully on the warm centre of their mutual love.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy spheare.
Lovers traditionally want everything to revolve around them and this is ridiculing the lovers' selfishness, saying that Donne wishes for the sun to move around his lady and him alone.
Marvell addresses his poem exclusively to his mistress intending to persuade her to sleep with him and hence, includes all sorts of flattery and hyperbole, likening the lady to the exotic "Indian Ganges" and exaggerating her beauty so much that the "thirty thousand" years he devotes to adoring her body almost makes the "coy mistress" seem vain herself. In the second stanza, he scares her using shocks and fear to persuade her that if she does not submit to him now, her "long-preserved virginity" will be eternally useless in the grave and that her "quaint honour [will] turn to dust".
In contrast, Donne addresses his poem to the sun, not the lady, and uses it as a means to show his love for his wife, Ann More. The sun is such a powerful entity, an object worshipped by whole races, and throughout Donne claims their love to be greater than any heavenly body. Donne says that he could "eclipse" the sun and hyperbolically claims, "Thou sunne art halfe as happy'as wee". In the time at which it was written - circa 1610 - poems such as The Sunne Rising would have been handed round acquaintances in manuscript form and Donne would obviously have wanted to make the extent of his love well-known.
Both poems portray a feeling of space with Donne showing the sun's journey round the earth travelling past both of the Indies in sequence, while Marvell rhetorically quizzes his mistress if they have "but world enough" showing the sheer size of the matter. Then, he juxtaposes the Ganges with his humble Humber depicting a feeling of distance between the two. The growth of his love being "vaster than empires" gives us a real impression of space, as empires are often unfeasibly large and complex. The techniques employed are fairly effective at giving this sense of space. However, the sparseness of references amongst lots of time-related couplets involving thousands and thousands of years forces the theme of space to take a back seat in the first verse. Marvell professes to have loved the lady even "ten years before the flood" at the dawn of time and before his exaggerated claims of adoration, says he will still love her "Till the conversion of the Jews" - a fairly unlikely event. In this way, Marvell suspends his lady in this sumptuous time forever.
Marvell relies strongly on the idea of carpe diem - seize the day - too. He insists that if his mistress doesn't take her chance now, it will forever be too late, stating, "Thy beauty no more shall be found" and that there will be no affection after death. A main theme of his poem is that time is always catching up on us - its passing is unavoidable. Time is "hurrying near" and while she is still young and attractive, Marvell's mistress should "sport...while [she] may".
Donne too, uses this theme and extravagantly proclaims his partnership to be immune to the passing of time:
Love all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time.
He is always aware of the time, knowing when the King should go hunting, that "schoole boyes" are late and when "countrey ants [should go] to harvest offices". It is quite a significant thing to order the sun to bother the divine monarch instead of a lowly poet. Also, the size and space covered varies from the "windowes, and curtaines" to a universal scale. Donne does not cover the same imagery as Marvell, yet he includes a further feeling of space and portrays the sun as pathetic and small next to his wife and him.
Marvell's second stanza contains strong sexual imagery combined with the sinister deathliness as well as the "amorous birds of prey" that "devour" their time. Eating, death and sex are three things often associated and linked together and the sombre tone of the second verse is quite grave as Marvell reveals the irony of the worthless "eternity" of perpetual death. There is still a strong impression of the lady's beauty though, and their "sweetness" could relate to food as well as Marvell's opinion of his mistress.
Donne makes his mistress appear as a real person who is truly in love and attached to him. However, she is allowed to have no personality in the poem and there is no description of her actual appearance. Donne is quite self-important, smug and possessive - he uses a lot of the inclusive "you" and "we". His wife is kept materialistic and the poem is more about their love than her. Marvell though, assigns almost the entire first stanza to over-the-top adoration as he praises every part of the "coy mistress"'s body. Interestingly, the word 'coy' has ambiguous synonyms and although Marvell does not make it clear what he means by the word, the definitions are quite different. Its meaning can range from 'shy', to 'flirtatious' implying the woman was simply playing hard-to-get. Although Donne is in harmonious love with his wife, Marvell has not completely enticed his lady and still wants more. Because of this, he is far more complimentary and lacks any of the subtlety and "coyness" of his frustrating lady in getting his point across.
Donne uses a plethora of poetic devices to try and convince both the sun and reader. He employs colloquial language in the first line referring to the interfering sun as a "Busie old foole" and the scornful word "thou". "Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?" naturally encourages the answer 'no', but this rhetorical question's true answer is, of course, 'yes'. Also, with this one line, Donne reveals an interest in recent scientific discoveries about universal theory. At the time, people were still arguing whether the sun rotates about the earth or vice versa. Donne professes to care nothing for the world and orders the sun around telling it to "Goe chide" and "Goe tell". The poet denies the importance and significance of anything other than him and his mistress. He derides the unworthy "moneths, which are the rags of time". Donne was a keen theatregoer and his language reflects this fact with the almost scripted, dramatic start of the poem. Donne thinks he is so deserving of respect that he could put the sun's flames out "with a winke" but already realising the futility of doing this, has a prepared response - "But that I would not lose her sight so long". Donne metaphorically compares his mistress to the beauties of "both the'India's" and with profuse hyperbole says:
She'is all States, and all Princes, I,
Nothing else is.
He also emphasises the sole importance of the lovers with the word 'all' in "All here in one bed lay" referring to the earth's wonders together with him. Donne uses more metaphors in the third stanza with the attention-seeking audacity of "Princes doe but play us, compar'd to this". This makes the point that even noble princes are but feeble imitations of their combined glory. Donne makes another unbelievable and rash claim stating that the only thing to exist is him and his mistress with "Shine here to us, and thou art every where". The poem suggests it should be read dramatically, like an actor, and Donne's open-ended lines give the reader more freedom to express the meaning without having to conform to a tight rhyme scheme and beat. Donne's language helps to affirm the two lovers' relationship as the quintessence of beauty.
Marvell uses a wide variety of techniques to help convince his mistress and there is more variation between the verses than in Donne's poem. The first stanza utilises lots of hyperbole as he builds up the greatness of the lady saying genuinely "lady, you deserve this state". The verse is laden with compliments - "Nor would I love at lower rate" sums up the poet's thoughts with a more rational, slower and sincere proclamation. However, in the second stanza the tone suddenly changes and it becomes rather morbid and focuses on death. Everybody understands how there never seems to be enough time, and like this, the inevitability of death is universal. The second stanza's pace picks up, and the speedy "winged chariot" of time hurries the words along. The first verse's "walk" now becomes a swift flight and as the tempo increases, Marvell pummels the lady with grim threats. There are some rather indecent double entendres in this stanza: Marvell's "echoing song", surely a euphemism for orgasm, cannot be felt in her "marble vault". This line has a double meaning - it is simultaneously romantic and very suggestive - charming whilst being dirty as well. The reader is left with no illusions about Marvell's true intentions.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
Firstly, Marvell wants to illustrate the extent of his supposed 'love' for the mistress by saying that, like vegetables growing, he is willing to take things little by little at first. He means that he would like to let his feelings for her progress naturally and at a slow rate allowing him to appreciate her fully. However, his "vegetable love" could easily be mistaken for something rather more risqué. The "vaster than empires" line may be a little narcissistic, yet it is easy to see what is represented. Un-coincidentally, phallus-like worms want to make the lady's "quaint honour turn to dust" as Marvell discards any notion of romance and turns instead to forceful persuasion. "Quaint" refers to female genitalia and though these lines do get the poet's point across, we wonder if the "coy mistress" is alert enough to pick up on these veiled suggestions. The last couplet of this stanza encapsulates its idea that she will miss her chance and it will be too late to be held in each other's arms when they are dead. Marvell intends this vivid imagery to shock the lady into agreeing with him. The third stanza sees the pace slow down at the beginning with soft-sounding words like "youthful hue" and "morning dew" which makes a striking change from the grim second verse. Then, Marvell attempts to catch his lady in the flow of the words and fires short, sharp syllables like "roll", "all", "rough", "strife" and "ball" so that she does not expect the final conclusion.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
The lady will arrive upon the last couplet unawares and Marvell wants her to agree and reject her tentativeness in favour of uninhibited bliss. There is a sense of urgency as Marvell repeats the word "now" not letting the mistress to forget that time is sparse. It is difficult to deny this so the mistress should be convinced.
After studying both poems, I have come to appreciate them both, albeit for dissimilar things. They are both very different but appeal in many ways. At first, I found To His Coy Mistress more instantly appealing and accessible with its wittiness, structure and measured logic. I also find I can admire the thoughtful, reflective and intellectual Donne poem. The Sunne Rising is not as instantly enjoyable, but for me, it still holds a certain appeal and Donne's intelligent writing and unorthodox style is great to read. He is able to cunningly outwit the sun itself and convince the reader whilst including relevant comments on society and science. The reckless claims made throughout incline one to almost laugh as Donne graciously accepts his own absurdity, and this only heightens the partiality. Although Donne does not devote his entire poem to worship the mistress, we get the feeling his love is both shared and genuine and feel a real sense of the two lovers' timelessness versus the world.
Having said that, I must say overall, I marginally prefer Marvell's poem. There is a hint that it may all simply be an act but with one obvious purpose, but Marvell makes his poem more enjoyable. I am not convinced about how authentic the perceived depth of his love is as it seems solely based on he mistress's physical attributes. The lady is worshipped throughout the first stanza but not once does Marvell praise her personality or appreciate her as a whole, complete person. His so-called "love" may well run out and not last "till the conversion of the Jews". There is no speculation upon how life is going to be spent after Marvell's fanciful act and, despite the eloquent personification, there is nothing in Marvell's poem suggesting true love. I do like both the poems, but disregarding the rigid structure and misogyny, To His Coy Mistress is just simply more humorous and persuasive.
Both these poems are about love and both end in lines involving the sun but, as we have seen, are so different. We must not forget that even if they are both described as 'metaphysical poems', it is not all the same and after analysis, we can realise that the differences can matter far more than any similarities.