To His Coy Mistress Poem by Andrew Marvell

by
  1. Had we but world enough, and time,
  2. This coyness, lady, were no crime.
  3. We would sit down and think which way
  4. To walk and pass our long love’s day.
  5. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
  6. Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
  7. Of Humber would complain. I would
  8. Love you ten years before the Flood,
  9. And you should, if you please, refuse
  10. Till the conversion of the Jews.
  11. My vegetable love should grow
  12. Vaster than empires, and more slow.
  13. An hundred years should go to praise
  14. Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.
  15. Two hundred to adore each breast,
  16. But thirty thousand to the rest.
  17. An age at least to every part,
  18. And the last age should show your heart.
  19. For, lady, you deserve this state,
  20. Nor would I love at lower rate.
  21. But at my back I always hear
  22. Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
  23. And yonder all before us lie
  24. Deserts of vast eternity.
  25. Thy beauty shall no more be found,
  26. Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
  27. My echoing song; then worms shall try
  28. That long-preserved virginity,
  29. And your quaint honor turn to dust,
  30. And into ashes all my lust.
  31. The grave’s a fine and private place,
  32. But none, I think, do there embrace.
  33. Now therefore, while the youthful hue
  34. Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
  35. And while thy willing soul transpires
  36. At every pore with instant fires,
  37. Now let us sport us while we may,
  38. And now, like amorous birds of prey,
  39. Rather at once our time devour
  40. Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
  41. Let us roll all our strength and all
  42. Our sweetness up into one ball,
  43. And tear our pleasures with rough strife
  44. Through the iron gates of life.
  45. Thus, though we cannot make our sun
  46. Stand still, yet we will make him run.