Thus, Though We Cannot Make Our Sun

And Yonder All Before Us Lie Deserts Of Vast Eternity.

Had We But World Enough, And Time, This Coyness, Lady, Were No Crime.

But At My Back I Always Hear Time's Winged 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 Preserv'd 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.

My Love Is Of A Birth As Rare As 'tis, For Object, Strange And High; It Was Begotten By Despair Upon Impossibility.

And Now, When I Have Summed Up All My Store, Thinking (so I Myself Deceive) So Rich A Chaplet Thence To Weave As Never Yet The King Of Glory Wore, Alas! I Find The Serpent Old, That, Twining In His Speckled Breast, About The Flowers Disguised Does Fold With Wreaths Of Fame And Interest.