Andrew Marvell Quotes

50 Sourced Quotes

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.

Andrew Marvell
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

Andrew Marvell
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.

Andrew Marvell
Oh thou, that dear and happy isle
The garden of the world ere while,
Thou paradise of four seas.

Andrew Marvell
No white nor red was ever seen So am'rous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress' name. Little, alas, they know or heed How far these beauties hers exceed! Fair trees! where s'e'er your barks I wound, No name shall but your own be found.

Andrew Marvell
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night.

Andrew Marvell
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide.

Andrew Marvell
What wondrous life in 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.

Andrew Marvell
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.

Andrew Marvell
O let our voice his praise exalt,
Till it arrive at Heaven's vault:
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay.

Andrew Marvell
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.

Andrew Marvell
How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays.

Andrew Marvell
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

Andrew Marvell
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.

Andrew Marvell
And makes the hollow seas, that roar,
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.

Andrew Marvell
This indigested vomit of the Sea,
Fell to the Dutch by Just Propriety.

Andrew Marvell
Had it lived long, it would have been
Lilies without, roses within.

Andrew Marvell
While thus he threw his Elbow round,
Depopulating all the Ground,
And, with his whistling Sythe, does cut
Each stroke between the Earth and Root,
The edged Stele by careless chance
Did into his own Ankle glance;
And there among the Grass fell down,
by his own Sythe, the Mower mown.

Andrew Marvell
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 honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Andrew Marvell
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.

Andrew Marvell
My mind was once the true survey Of all these meadows fresh and gay; And in the greenness of the grass Did see its hopes as in a glass.

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

Andrew Marvell
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.

Andrew Marvell
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.

Andrew Marvell
Here learn, ye mountains more unjust, Which to abrupter greatness thrust, Which do, with your hook-shoulder'd height, The earth deform, and heaven fright, For whose excrescence, ill design'd, Nature must a new centre find, Learn here those humble steps to tread, Which to securer glory lead.

Andrew Marvell
How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?

Andrew Marvell
I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness.

Andrew Marvell
Ye living lamps, by whose dear light
The nightingale does sit so late
And studying all the summer night
Her matchless songs does meditate;

Ye country comets, that portend
No war, nor prince's funeral,
Shining unto no higher end
Than to presage the grasses's fall;

Ye glow-worms whose officious flame
To wandering mowers shows the way,
That in the night have lost their aim
And after foolish fires do stray;

Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since juliana here is come,
For she my mind hath so displaced
That I shall never find my home.

Andrew Marvell
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.

Andrew Marvell
How fit is he to sway
That can so well obey ("Horatian Ode," 83-84),

Andrew Marvell