But At My Back I Always Hear

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.

Ye Country Comets, That Portend No War, Nor Prince's Funeral, Shining Unto No Higher End Than To Presage The Grasses Fall. . . .

But At My Back I Always Hear Time's Winged 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 Preserv'd 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.

My Love Is Of A Birth As Rare As 'tis, For Object, Strange And High; It Was Begotten By Despair Upon Impossibility.

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.