Andrew Marvell Quotes

What should we do but sing the praise That led us through the watery maze, Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own?

Oh thou, that dear and happy isle The garden of the world ere while, Thou paradise of four seas, Which heaven planted us to please, But, to exclude the world, did guard With watery if not flaming sword; What luckless apple did we taste, To make us mortal, and thee waste?

’Tis not, what once it was, the world; But a rude heap together hurl’d.

’Twas beyond a mortal’s share To wander solitary there: Two paradises ’twere in one To live in paradise alone.

Such was that happy garden-state, While man there walked without a mate.

Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade.