Andrew Marvell

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.

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-chapp'd power.

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,

But at my back I always hear Time's wingèd 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

An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart.

Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, Lady, were no crime.

The world in all doth but two nations bear — The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere.

Art indeed is long, but life is short.

For though the whole world cannot show such another, Yet we’d better by far have him than his brother.