The poem begins with an if-clause where the poet poses his problem, ‘human life is short. He is sad because the woman is so shy and coy, and in his opinion this coyness is a crime.

He pones himself by the Humber and her by the Indian Ganges, this to underline the distance between them. In the first lines the repetition of sound ai draws the attention on the suffering of the poet for his love.

He then goes on, using religious hyperboles, as example explaining how he would love her from the flood to the conversion of the Jews . the use of this hyperboles suonds very ironical. Then he compares his love to a vegetable, to underline the nature of his love and the poet writes that his love should grow vaster then empires to magnify the love, but he ironically says that his love will need more time than the development of an empire.
Marvell uses another time hyperbole explaining how thousands of years should be taken to admire her.
The lack of time is the central subject of this poem and this lack is caused by the mistress coyness.