To His Coy Mistress
Andrew Marvell
1621 to 1678
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Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love ten years before the flood,
And you should, if please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I at lower rate.
But at my back I hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will him run.