Quotes from The Complete Poems

15 notable lines from Andrew Marvell · 1681

Had we but world enough and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime.

To His Coy Mistress
  1. Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, Lady, were no crime.

    Opening lines, "To His Coy Mistress"
  2. But at my back I always hear / Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;

    "To His Coy Mistress"
  3. The grave's a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace.

    To His Coy Mistress
  4. Annihilating all that's made / To a green thought in a green shade.

    The Garden
  5. My vegetable Love should grow / Vaster than Empires, and more slow.

    "To His Coy Mistress"
  6. Thus, though we cannot make our Sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run.

    Closing couplet, "To His Coy Mistress"
  7. My Love is of a birth as rare / As 'tis for object strange and high: / It was begotten by Despair / Upon Impossibility.

    Opening stanza, "The Definition of Love"
  8. He nothing common did or mean / Upon that memorable scene,

    On the execution of Charles I, "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland"
  9. But bow'd his comely head / Down, as upon a bed.

    On the execution of Charles I, "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland"
  10. He hangs in shades the orange bright, / Like golden lamps in a green night;

    "Bermudas"
  11. Society is all but rude, / To this delicious Solitude.

    "The Garden"
  12. Two Paradises 'twere in one / To live in Paradise alone.

    "The Garden"
  13. The same arts that did gain / A pow'r, must it maintain.

    Closing lines, "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland"
  14. Therefore the Love which us doth bind, / But Fate so enviously debarrs, / Is the Conjunction of the Mind, / And Opposition of the Stars.

    Closing stanza, "The Definition of Love"