• 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...

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

    Magnanimous Despair alone
    Could show me so divine a thing
    Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown,
    But vainly flapp'd its tinsel wing.

    And yet I quickly might arrive
    Where my extended soul is fixt,
    But Fate does iron...

  •       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 ’t was born)
            Round in itself encloses,
          And in its little globe’s extent
    Frames, as it can, its native element.
          How it the purple flower does slight,...

  • Where the remote Bermudas ride
    In the ocean’s bosom unespied,
    From a small boat that rowed along
    The listening winds received this song:
    “What should we do but sing His praise
    That led us through the watery maze
    Where he the huge sea monsters wracks,
    That lift the deep upon their backs,
    Unto an isle so long unknown,
    And...

  • Ha sok időnk lenne e földtekén:
    vonakodásod nem rühellném.
    Töprengenék, hol töltsem el veled
    a végtelen szerelmi éveket.
    A Gangesz-parton, hol rubin terem,
    járnál te: én a ködös Humberen
    szenvelgenék. Ha száz év elszaladt,
    felkérnélek: add végre meg magad,
    mire te addig húznád az időt,
    míg megkeresztelkednek a zsidók.
    ...