Quote#World
And now to the abyss I pass
Quote byAndrew Marvell · 1621–1678
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Miscellaneous Poems (1681), Upon Appleton House, stanza 47.
English (original)
And now to the abyss I pass Of that unfathomable grass, Where men like grasshoppers appear, But grasshoppers are giants there: They, in their squeaking laugh, contemn Us as we walk more low than them: And, from the precipices tall Of the green spires, to us do call.
— Andrew Marvell
More from Andrew Marvell
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.
For though the whole world cannot show such another, Yet we’d better by far have him than his brother.
Art indeed is long, but life is short.
The world in all doth but two nations bear — The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere.
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