Quote of the Day: Andrew Marvell

"But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near."

Did you miss me?

That's right, people, I am back and committed as ever to providing you with the superior blogging you've come to expect and demand. I have been really pressed for time over the past month which is why I chose that line from Andrew Marvell's poem *"To His Coy Mistress" as the quote of the day. The poems pretty funny because it's really just a fancy pick-up line. "Come back to my place, baby, before we're both dead."

So a lot has happened to me over the past month. I got married, went to Europe, ate lots of crepes, almost got kicked off a city bus in London, learned that the French are stereotyped as rude for the very same reason the English are stereotyped as poor cooks - because they are, bummed money from my in-laws after a week of marriage so I could eat something other than Cliff Bars in Paris, stayed next to the Sexodrome in Paris where I became an expert on the Red Light District - thanks to my stupid travel agent not knowing there are several TimHotels there, saw a drug-bust, went to a Pixies concert, realized that the differences between Weezer and myself are irreconcilable, got told that my religion makes me a good employee, won the Inside Sales Rep of the Year Award, bought a popcorn popper, traveled to Boston for work, realized I am in love with old churches and cemeteries, discovered that such a wondrous thing as Diet Sunkist exists, decided that I am lusting after a kindle, and just generally smashed my orderly routine.

I think that's enough for today. Don't worry, I plan on fleshing out the interesting parts of the above run-on sentence over the next week. So put the word out on the street that your humble correspondent is back.





*
TO HIS COY MISTRESS

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 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.

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 am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd 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.