And Yonder All Before Us

Annihilating All That's Made, To A Green Thought In A Green Shade.

As Lines, So Loves Oblique, May Well Themselves In Every Angle Greet; But Ours, So Truly Parallel, Though Infinite, Can Never Meet.

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.

Like The Vain Curlings Of The Watery Maze, Which In Smooth Streams A Sinking Weight Does Raise, So Man, Declining Always, Disappears In The Weak Circles Of Increasing Years; And His Short Tumults Of Themselves Compose, While Flowing Time Above His Head Does Close.

Had It Lived Long, Is Would Have Been Lilies Without, Roses Within.