To His Coy Mistress

¹Had we but world enough and time,

²This coyness, lady, were no crime.

³We would sit down, and think which way

⁴To walk, and pass our long love's day.

⁵Thou by the Indian Ganges' side

⁶Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

⁷Of Humber would complain. I would

⁸Love you ten years before the flood,

⁹And you should, if you please, refuse

¹⁰Till the conversion of the Jews.

¹¹My vegetable love should grow

¹²Vaster than empires and more slow;

¹³An hundred years should go to praise

¹⁴Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

¹⁵Two hundred to adore each breast,

¹⁶But thirty thousand to the rest;

¹⁷An age at least to every part,

¹⁸And the last age should show your heart.

¹⁹For, lady, you deserve this state,

²⁰Nor would I love at lower rate.

²¹But at my back I always hear

²²Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;

²³And yonder all before us lie

²⁴Deserts of vast eternity.

²⁵Thy beauty shall no more be found;

²⁶Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

²⁷My echoing song; then worms shall try

²⁸That long-preserved virginity,

²⁹And your quaint honour turn to dust,

³⁰And into ashes all my lust;

³¹The grave's a fine and private place,

³²But none, I think, do there embrace.

³³Now therefore, while the youthful hue

³⁴Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

³⁵And while thy willing soul transpires

³⁶At every pore with instant fires,

³⁷Now let us sport us while we may,

³⁸And now, like amorous birds of prey,

³⁹Rather at once our time devour

⁴⁰Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

⁴¹Let us roll all our strength and all

⁴²Our sweetness up into one ball,

⁴³And tear our pleasures with rough strife

⁴⁴Through the iron gates of life:

⁴⁵Thus, though we cannot make our sun

⁴⁶Stand still, yet we will make him run.