Andrew Marvell

Saw someone give a virtuoso performance leading a class discussion on the poem "To His Coy Mistress." The final lines are worth quoting today.

Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

"Tear our pleasures" indeed. What is interesting is that a number of students wanted to endorse the suggestion that Marvell is talking about procreation here, "one ball" being a fetus I guess. All boys, oddly. The girls pretty much thought that he's talking about the nasty.