Blog Post #11 "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"

Poem:

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

   Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

   The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

   And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

   When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

   And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

   You may forever tarry.

Response:

From the title, I assume that the speaker is addressing Virgins (virgins in the sexual sense or virgins to the world?), and I guess "to make much of time" just means to use their time wisely.
The poem basically says time passes quickly and what you think you have now you wont have tomorrow, and youth is a terrible thing to waste so they should take advantage of it (and get married bc who would want to marry you when you're not young and pretty amirite ladies???)
There's a lot of imagery and metaphor used to amplify this message of not wasting time. "Flying time," for example, helps strengthen just how quickly time moves by.  "Gather ye rosebuds" is a good use of imagery to help the read conceptualize when the speaker is communicating, as is the imagery involving the sun, to better communicate the passage of time.
Now, this is all well and good, wanting people not to squander their youth, but by the final lines of the poem, we can see that all this talk was just about marriage. "Gather ye rosebuds," and the references to flowers in the poem, can be likened to marriage- the virgins only have but a bit of time to get married, as the rosebuds only have a bit of time to be plucked. (Alternatively, I think the flowers could be used to express female genitalia, as they often are used in literature. The virgins must gather their flowers before time runs out and no one wants their flowers anymore)(flower is also another name people use for vagina but like I don't know why?)
"For having lost but once your prime/ you may forever tarry" This last line really drives it home, basically saying that if you don't marry in your prime, you may never get married (from putting it off our because you're not young and beautiful anymore yay!!!).
So in summary: the poet uses a lot of great metaphors and imagery to demonstrate the passing of time, and encourage some virgins to get married.

(Side note: So like cool that part of this poem is all carpe diem but the fact that it's literally just about how if these virgins don't marry before they're out of their prime they never will is sooooooo gross.
and like I also recognize the time period it was written in but this poem didn't stop being read back then, people still read it now. We need to be conscious of how literature can shape our world, and in our current world, telling a woman she better get married now before she isn't pretty anymore and no one will want her is real messed up and rubs me the wrong way and makes me so confused as to how people don't understand how literature can be political??? And how they try to remove the text from the present day with excuses like "WELL WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN BLAH BLAH BLAH" like okay???That's great if your analyzing it purely New Historical. But that's not what our society is like right now. Ideas change, society changes, morals change. Anyway I'm sorry this was way off track and more political than I'd need to be on the AP test but I'm real heated about what's going on in baltimore right now  + having a white conservative family try to tell me about it lmaaaaaaooooooo so yeah I hope you're having a great night Bavaro)