Question

What figurative language does Andrew Marvell use in "To His Coy Mistress"?

Accepted Answer

Marvell uses several types of figurative language in this poem. In the first stanza, he describes the way in which the lover who narrates the poem would pursue love languidly and without rushing if time were no object. The lover compares his love to the slow growth of a vegetable: "My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires and more slow." His love would increase as slowly as empires grow and would become as vast. "My vegetable love" is an example of a metaphor, as is the comparison of the growth of his love to the growth of empires. In the second stanza, he uses other metaphors to explain that time is rapid and forever proceeding. He says that he can always hear "Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; / And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity." In these lines, he compares time to a chariot that is traveling quickly by him, as if it were carried by horses, and he says that eternity is a vast desert filled with nothingness. These two ideas are both metaphors.
While his mistress is young, the lover thinks they should pursue love. He says that "youthful hue / Sits on thy skin like morning dew." In this simile, he compares the freshness of his mistress's skin to morning dew. He says that he and his mistress should act like "amorous birds of prey," a simile. He also suggests that they tear through "the iron gates of life," a metaphor in which life is compared to a walled area through which they must burst. In the last two lines of the poem, he says, "Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run." This is an example of personification, as the lover suggests that he and his mistress cause the sun to race and hurry, as if the sun were a person.

Answer

Time is personified in the poem—meaning it is given human attributes such as the ability to drive a chariot or to purposely pursue us to our deaths. The speaker says that "Time's winged chariot [is] hurrying near," meaning that he and his coy mistress, who evidently will not consent to have sex with him, do not have all the time in the world, and so he wishes to hurry along their intimacy.
He says that her "marble vault," the place where she will be buried, will house the "worms" that will "try" her "long-preserved virginity." It's rather a gross image, that her body will be invaded by worms after death, and it seems to carry some sexual meaning as well, as worms are sometimes employed as phallic symbols. The implication is that she will be penetrated by something, and wouldn't she wish it to be her living lover rather than worms, after she is dead?
He says, further, that all his lust will turn to "ashes" at that time, as though it will have been completely burned up—sexual passion is often compared to fire, and so this reads as an example of metonymy: when the poet substitutes something associated with a thing for the thing itself. The idea of "ashes" stands in for something that has been used up or consumed. Later, the speaker uses a simile when he compares the "youthful hue" that sits on his lover's skin to "morning dew." She is young, now, like the early day, but just as the day ages, so will she.
Another simile describes the two of them as "amorous birds of prey" who can "devour" time. He wants them to take control of time by enjoying one another now. Finally, the sun is personified as being able to "run"; the speaker hopes that they will take charge of time and control it rather than being controlled by it.

Answer

Marvell's narrator uses hyperbole or exaggeration in this poem to try to persuade his beloved to sleep with him. He refers to his beloved as coy, meaning shy, but with the added twist of faking the shyness, of holding back to play games with him. He uses exaggeration to indicate how much time he would love spending wooing her—if that amount of time existed:

A hundred years should go to praise 
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; 
Two hundred to adore each breast, 
But thirty thousand to the rest;

The narrator uses this instance of hyperbole to suggest to his beloved that, as mortal human beings, we do not have all the time in the world before we grow old and die. Hyperbole—two hundred years to praise each breast—is meant to showcase to the beloved how ridiculous she is being in holding out on him. Of course, he does not literally expect (or want) to spend centuries praising her body—this is figurative speech. 
 
The narrator uses figurative language to describe death in order to persuade his beloved to seize the day. He paints a vivid picture of the beloved in death. He never uses the word death, instead relying on imagery to describe it: her "marble vault," will be silent, and worms will crawl through her corpse:

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound 
My echoing song; then worms shall try 
That long-preserved virginity

Finally, he personifies the sun, which stands for time in this poem, saying we will "make him run."

To His Coy Mistress

What figurative language does Andrew Marvell use in "To His Coy Mistress"?

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