| The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002. |
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| Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, Lady, were no crime |
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| The first lines of “To His Coy Mistress,” a poem by the seventeenth-century English poet Andrew Marvell. The poet tells a woman whom he loves that if they had endless time and space at their disposal, then he could accept her unwillingness to go to bed with him. Life is short, however, and opportunities must be seized. | 1 |
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| | | The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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