To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time



"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" is a 1648 poem by the English Cavalier poet Robert Herrick. The poem is in the genre of carpe diem, Latin for "seize the day".

1648 text
"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."

Theme


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.