To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
    Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to day,
    To morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
    The higher he's a getting;
The sooner will his Race be run,
    And neerer he's to Setting.

That Age is best, which is the first,
    When Youth and Blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
    Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
    And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
    You may forever tarry.^[1]

 

First published as number 208 in the verse collection Hesperides (1648), the poem extols the notion of carpe diem, a philosophy that recognizes the brevity of life and the need to live for and in the moment. The phrase originates in Horace's Ode 1.11.

• 1648 in poetry
• "To His Coy Mistress", a poem by Andrew Marvell on the same subject
• Lady Du Qiu
• Gondola no Uta

 

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To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

 

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