Had we but opportunity, and time,
this wanton indolence would be no crime.
We could choose at length, how best to earn our crust,
an inchoate passion, an absolute must.
Ten thousand happy hours spent on traditional grip,
cross stitching, flat-picking or mastery of whip.
Virtuosity would be in our reach,
if inane mundanity did our lives not breach.
In time I would acquire a second language or two,
with a year in each country, just to absorb the milieu.
And in those dwellings embrace their distinctive cuisine,
the sautée and flambé, their palette pristine.
The costume and customs, an utter immersion.
The nuance, their pastimes, a total conversion.

But all around us, we see and hear the seconds fly,
as sands of vast desserts run the hourglass dry.
No lifetime well spent to study: a celestial passion -
that universal canopy, always constant, in fashion.
No time to render from it, a purpose, some meaning.
Or just gaze in stupor, in splendorous feeling.
That desire to leave an insight, impart some great reason;
comes to nought, bears no fruit, the ultimate life’s treason.

Now therefore, while your middle age is sailing on,
and your youthful hue is virtually gone.
And while your dreams, your hopes, are yet expired,
and still inside you lie latent fires.
Now let us cast off life’s binding shackles,
dispose of ignorance and apathy that so raise my hackles.
Let us become coherent, aware of the important,
eschew the trivial and seize the moment.
Dispose of the superfluous, the fleeting sensation,
embrace the devout and devour the vocation.
Thus, though we cannot live our lives afresh,
yet we can ensure life’s iron cogs still mesh.

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,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast;
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart;
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
   But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd 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 preserved 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.
   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-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.