Andrew Marvell constructs a logical argument for seduction: if we had infinite time, your coyness would be appropriate; but time's winged chariot is approaching; therefore let us roll all our strength and sweetness into one ball and tear our pleasures through the iron gates of life. The syllogism is absurd, and the poetry transcends it. The images of vast empires, vegetable love, worms, dust, and finally that desperate urgency: Marvell compresses enormous feeling into forty-six couplets. It is the greatest carpe diem poem in English.