What Wondrous Life Is This

Though I Carry Always Some Ill-nature About Me, Yet It Is, I Hope, No More Than Is In This World Necessary For A Preservative.

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.

Twas Beyond A Mortal's Share To Wander Solitary There: Two Paradises 'twere In One To Live In Paradise Alone.

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.