Quotes by Andrew Marvell

“Music, the mosaic of the air”

“The graves a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace”

“He hangs in shades the orange bright, / Like golden lamps in a green night.”

“The mind, that ocean where each kind / Does straight its own resemblance find; / Yet it creates, transcending these, / Far other worlds, and other seas, / Annihilating all thats made / To a green thought in a green shade.”

“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.”

“Gather the flowers, but spare the buds.”

“But at my back I always hear Times winged chariot hurrying near.”

“Earth cannot show so brave a sight, / As when a single soul does fence / The batteries of alluring sense / And Heaven views it with delight.”

“Here at the fountains sliding foot, / Or at some fruit trees mossy root, / Casting the bodys vest aside, / My soul into the boughs does glide.”

“Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run.”

The graves a fine and private place,But none, I think, do there embrace.

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.

But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near

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.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

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-chapped 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.

Had we but world enough, and time

Thus, though we cannot make our sunStand still, yet we will make him run.

Had we but world enough, and time...

Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpiresAt 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.