What Wondrous Life Is This I Lead!

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.

What Wondrous Life Is This I Lead! Ripe Apples Drop About My Head; The Luscious Clusters Of The Vine Upon My Mouth Do Crush Their Wine; The Nectarine And Curious Peach Into My Hands Themselves Do Reach; Stumbling On Melons, As I Pass, Ensnared With Flowers, I Fall On Grass.

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.

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.

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