To His Coy Mistress

Listen to:

To His Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

 

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                 

Shouldst 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.            

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,       

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.           

 

  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  

My echoing song: then worms shall try

That long preserved virginity, 

And your quaint honour turn to dust, 

And into ashes all my lust:       

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 

At every pore with instant fires,          

Now let us sport us while we may,     

And now, like amorous birds of prey, 

Rather at once our time devour           

Than languish in his slow-chapt power.

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.