Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote "The Lover: A Ballad" in an attempt to reject the sexist attitudes of several male poets of the period. John Donne (“The Flea”), Andrew Marvell (“To his Coy Mistress”) and Robert Herrick (“To Virgins, Make Much of Time”) attempt, through poetic means, to pressure virgins and young women to find companions and lovers before their beauty deteriorates and women are rendered useless by old age. In a calculated response to these men, who wrote these poems around or before Montagu's birth, she states on behalf of all women her greatest desire: to find the perfect man. Montagu laments the impossibility of this worthy man throughout the poem and addresses the likes of Donne, Marvell and Herrick in the final stanza saying "I will never share with the wanton coquette, nor be caught by a vain affection for wit ". Montagu's perspective is this: until the perfect man comes along, a woman should not share her body with every man who approaches her with poems about her beauty. It is not the woman who should urgently give up her body, but rather the man who should actively seek it by valuing the woman beyond her physical beauty. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Montagu begins the poem with an acknowledgment of the brevity of time: “I know too well how time flies, / That we live but a few years, and fewer still young are.” He agrees with his male contemporaries on the fact that time is of the essence. This statement is not entirely pessimistic. He thereafter spends much of the poem describing the qualities of a man who represents a glimmer of hope in his mind. nor would he plan obscenely.” He would be equally comfortable in public and private with Montagu. He would be respectful and trustworthy an ally. She could spend time with her lover in happiness rather than letting the seconds tick away into old age. However, Montagu also accepts that the chances of finding such a man are remarkably slim and is willing to live her life as she does now : alone. He says, “But until I know this extraordinary creature, / Since I have long lived chaste, I will keep myself so.” According to Montagu, it is preferable to wait for a perfect man than to waste one's virginity on the first man who approaches her with a witty song or slogan: "I will never share with the wanton coquette, / Nor be captured by a vain affection of wit ./Toasters and singers may try all their art,/But they will never enter the depths of my heart. Attempting to influence a woman with cheap tricks in turn detracts from the relationship, something Montagu does not want to sacrifice poem seems to be a feminine response to other poems of the period, mainly from the male point of view. Its reflections on time bear a close resemblance to Marvell's "To his Coy Mistress". ever / the winged chariot of speeding time... Thy beauty shall no more be found, / Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound / My echoing song." Marvell urges his subject to consider him a lover before both they harden over time. Montagu also says: “We harden as trees and as rivers grow cold.” Both Marvell and Montagu agree that over time the chances of mutual love diminish. However, everyone is looking for a different kind of love. Marvell, as Women and.