- To His Coy Mistress
- Andrew Marvell
- Exported from Wikisource on 02/16/20
- Had we but world enough, and time,
- This coyness, lady, were no crime.
- We would sit down, and think which way
- To walk, and pass our long love's day.
- Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
- Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
- Of Humber would complain. I would
- Love you ten years before the flood,
- And you should, if you please, refuse
- Till the conversion of the Jews.
- My vegetable love should grow
- Vaster than empires, and more slow;
- An hundred years should go to praise
- Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
- Two hundred to adore each breast,
- But thirty thousand to the rest;
- An age at least to every part,
- And the last age should show your heart.
- For, lady, you deserve this state,
- Nor would I love at lower rate.
- But at my back I always hear
- Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
- And yonder all before us lie
- Deserts of vast eternity.
- Thy beauty shall no more be found,
- Nor, in thy marble vault shall sound
- My echoing song; then worms shall try
- That long-preserved virginity,
- And your quaint honour turn to dust,
- And into ashes 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 morning dew,
- And while thy willing soul transpires
- At every pore with instant fires,
- Now let us sport us while we may,
- And now, like amorous birds of prey,
- Rather at once our time devour
- Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
- Let us roll all our strength and all
- Our sweetness up into one ball,
- And tear our pleasures with rough strife
- Thorough the iron gates of life.
- Thus, though we cannot make our sun
- Stand still, yet we will make him run.
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