Had we but world enough, and time.

Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns.

Twas beyond a mortal’s share To wander solitary there: Two paradises ’twere in one To live in paradise alone.

Casting the body’s vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide.

Self-preservation, nature’s first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe.

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.

My love is of a birth as rare As ’tis, for object, strange and high; It was begotten by Despair Upon Impossibility.

How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays; And their uncessant labours see Crown’d from some single herb or tree. Whose short and narrow verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all flow’rs and all trees do close To weave the garlands of repose.

See how the Orient dew, Shed from the bosom of the morn Into the blowing roses, Yet careless of its mansion new; For the clear region where ’twas born Round in its self encloses: And in its little globes extent, Frames as it can its native element.

Annihilating all that’s made, To a green thought in a green shade.