Ah, Faustus, / Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, / And then thou must be damn’d perpetually!
Faustus speaks these lines in his last soliloquy, as the clock strikes eleven on the final night of his bargain with the devil. He goes on to beg the heavens to “stand still” so that midnight never comes.
Come live with me and be my love, / And we will all the pleasures prove.
It lies not in our power to love or hate, / For will in us is overruled by fate.
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend / The wondrous architecture of the world, / And measure every wandering planet’s course, / Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players;
Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me –
Break, break, break, / On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! / And I would that my tongue could utter / The thoughts that arise in me.