To His Coy Mistress
-- Andrew Marvell (1641)

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 5

Should'st 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. 10

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; 15

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, 20

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, 25

Nor in thy marble vault shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long preserved virginity,

And your quaint honor turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust. 30

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 35

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like am'rous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour,

Than languish in his slow-chapt power, 40

Let us roll all our strength, and all

Our sweetness, up into one ball;

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun 45

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

This border is a reproduction of Thomas Gainsborough's
(1727 - 1788)
Mrs. "Perdita" Robinson
1781-1782, Wallace Collection, London
Jim's Fine Art Collection http://www.spectrumvoice.com/art/index.html [for educational use only]
Click here for the directory of my backgrounds based on art.