I got back a recent homework assignment today. It's a poem in response to Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress, in which a man tries to woo a young girl by telling her that life is short. It has the standard "carpe diem" message to it. Read the whole, original poem
here. The assignment was to reply to the young man from the girl's point of view. Here's my final, edited copy:
Feigning Modesty
'Tis true what you say that a marble vault
Awaits us all, bringing all to a halt.
Lovers who are wise will quicken their pace
Before the ashes fly and leave no trace
Of love forever lost by frosty Death;
We have such little time to catch our breath,
So it would indeed be a heinous crime
For us to waste our precious given time
By playing coy and feigning modesty.
Aye, if all the time in the world had we,
Perhaps then your echoing song could be heard
Through two long ages and into the third.
Your words so rich and so sweetly composed
Could well consume three ages unopposed,
And yet, 'tis fruitless for your love to swear,
For I cannot become your Helen fair.
I must take my leave and say goodbye,
For your older brother has caught my eye.
For this poem, I interpreted this girl not as a young and innocent thing, as the reader of the original poem is led to believe. My coy mistress is impetuous, experienced, and a little bit conceited. She knows men are easily attracted to her, and she uses that to her advantage. I fussed over the number of syllabes in each line. I finally settled on 10, though the original has 8.