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
　　Should'st 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 wing 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,
　　Through the iron gates of life!
　　Thus, though we cannot make our sun
　　Stand still, yet we will make him run.