. This switch of reference is significant because it shows the speaker to be dominating and critical of his Lady once more. As Reiff (196) points out, "MarvellÆs speaker talks to his love with the endearing thou pronouns when he tries to make her believe that they should be lovers, but when he wants to show her how cold she is to him, he uses you."
We see in the second stanza that the male speaker now sets out to inform his Lady that his description of what could be in the first stanza is not possible. There is not time for decades of love and rebuff, for as the speaker tells her, "But at my back I always hear / TimeÆs winged chariot hurrying near" (Marvell 21). We see the man try to undermine many virtues associated with the chaste woman in the second stanza. He informs the woman that "worms
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