Contrasting Love in To His Coy Mistress and Elegy for Jane If you are interested enough to look, you can find twenty-eight definitions for the word "love" in the dictionary. Such a broad word has undoubtedly contributed to the vast array of poems that all claim (legitimately) to be about “love.” Two of these poems are “To His Coy Mistress,” by Andrew Marvell, and “Elegy for Jane,” by Theodore Roethke. Both poems are clearly love poems; however, the types of love each represents are quite different. “To His Coy Mistress” is written in a very loving tone, while “Elegy for Jane” is written in a tone of deep personal affection and loss. The number three definition of love in the dictionary is “sexual passion or desire.” This is the position from which "To His Coy Mistress" is written. Marvell spends the first twenty lines of the poem praising feminine attributes such as shyness and virginity (lines 2 and 6). The first twenty lines of the poem are Marvell's attempt to gain the trust of the subject of the poem (since it is clearly written for a young woman). He assures her that if he had time, he would love her as she deserves to be loved (line 19). He assures her that he could spend more than thirty thousand years praising her body parts. He would also have waited for a moment of biblical greatness (lines 8-10) for the young woman to grant him her sexual favors, if he had had time to wait. However, even in this sort of "you can trust me because I love you and appreciate you fully for who you are" aimed at winning the girl's trust, it is clear that his intentions are amorous: the fact that he would like to spend only one hundred years praise her eyes, yet spend a total of four hundred years on her breast (lines 13-15) is... half of the paper... neither father nor lover"). Their bond, ostensibly teacher/student, turned into a friendship much stronger than the academic one. The tone is nostalgic, but at the same time sad for the loss of a person for whom the speaker had a deep affection. Love comes in many forms, and poets probably the have described all. at one point or another. So many different types of love, it is quite possible that two "love poems" are written in completely different tones. Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" is a poem very loving, spoken by a fiery young man, while Roethke's "Elegy for Jane" is a sad look at a life lost too soon, spoken by a deeply affected friend. Both poems are as touching as they are distinct from each other and make for an interesting lesson on love. Works Cited: Marvell, Andrew. "To his shy lover" and other poems. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1997.