Quote#World
Oh thou, that dear and happy isle
Quote byAndrew Marvell · 1621–1678
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Miscellaneous Poems (1681), Upon Appleton House, stanza 41.
English (original)
Oh thou, that dear and happy isle The garden of the world ere while, Thou paradise of four seas, Which heaven planted us to please, But, to exclude the world, did guard With watery if not flaming sword; What luckless apple did we taste, To make us mortal, and thee waste?
— 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