To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Robert Herrick

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1648

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Opportunities Don’t Last

The purpose of Herrick’s carpe diem poem is to encourage readers/the virgins to make the most of life. The main argument for this is that their current state—their youth and beauty—won’t last forever. Everything is transitory. This is most evident in the speaker’s repetition of the phrase “while ye may” in Lines 1 and 14. The speaker encourages the readers to “Gather ye rose-buds” (Line 1) and “go marry” (Line 14) while they still have the chance. The opportunities that they have now won’t last forever. All of these opportunities happen in the first “age,” which “is best” (Line 9). This period of one’s life is “When youth and blood are warmer” (Line 10). However, once youth passes, opportunities become scarcer and scarcer. Youth is succeeded by “worst / Times” (Lines 11-12). Once these golden years of youth, beauty, and life—of one’s “prime” (Line 15)—are over, then individuals will “forever tarry” (Line 16). They will forever languish in what once was or what could have been if they had only taken the chance.

Time and Change are the Only Constants

Herrick’s poem is about change. The speaker encourages their readers/the virgins to make a change and to make the most of their lives (by giving into pleasure and sexual gratification). Various bits of imagery in the poem help to highlight this change as well. In the first stanza, the speaker describes a “flower that smiles today” (Line 3). By “smiles,” the speaker implies positivity and joyfulness. Readers imagine a flower bright with color and imbued with life. However, in the very next line, “this same flower” (Line 3) is “dying” (Line 4). In the second stanza, the sun climbs higher and higher. Yet this trajectory upwards doesn’t remain the same, for as the sun climbs up the “nearer he’s to setting” (Line 8). The path of the sun completely alters by the day’s end.

In the third stanza, the time of life “[w]hen youth and blood are warmer” (Line 10) are “spent” (Line 11) and give way to still “worst / Times” (Lines 11-12). All of these images highlight the change that occurs in life. However, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “The only constant in life is change.” There are a few similarities between all of these images. Not only do they all depict some sort of change, but this change is achieved through the passage of time. Time leads to the flower wilting, to the sun setting, and to individuals aging. These two things, change and time, are the common denominators present throughout the images described by the speaker.

Live Life to its Fullest

The opening line of Herrick’s poem is written as part of an imperative sentence, a command to readers/the virgins to “Gather ye rose-buds” (Line 1). Gathering flowers symbolizes reveling in youth and beauty or chasing after love and passion. This imperative tone returns in the final stanza of the poem, after the speaker has already depicted the passage of time and the effects of change through the flower, sun, and age descriptions. In the final stanza, the speaker tells the readers/virgins to “be not coy” (Line 13). By encouraging them to not be “coy” (Line 13), the speaker desires that their intended audience give up their inhibitions and pursue their pleasures. This is what the speaker intends when they demand that the readers “use your time” (Line 13). They want their reading audience to be active participants in life rather than its passive recipients. To “use” (Line 13) one’s time means to make the most of every moment rather than taking the minutes and seconds for granted or letting them tick by. The final command that the speaker gives the readers/virgins is to “go marry” (Line 14). Marriage here represents the culmination of pleasure and of life. It is the end goal the speaker wants their audience to strive to attain. This culmination benefits not only the readers/virgins, but it also benefits the speaker who sexually desires the virgin being addressed. Whether the speaker’s intentions are altruistic or not, their message remains the same: Live life to its fullest before it passes you by.