XDA

Vides ut alta stet niue candidum
Soracte nec iam sustineant onus
siluae laborantes geluque
flumina constiterint acuto?

Dissolue frigus ligna super foco
large reponens atque benignius
deprome quadrimum Sabina,
o Thaliarche, merum diota.

Permitte diuis cetera, qui simul
strauere uentos aequore feruido
deproeliantis, nec cupressi
nec ueteres agitantur orni.

Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere, et
quem fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro
adpone nec dulcis amores
sperne, puer, neque tu choreas,

donec uirenti canities abest
morosa. Nunc et Campus et areae
lenesque sub noctem susurri
composita repetantur hora,

nunc et latentis proditor intumo
gratus puellae risus ab angulo
pignusque dereptum lacertis
aut digito male pertinaci.

Horace
Carmina
Liber I, Carmen IX


Do you see how Soracte stands in deep, bright snow,
and the labouring woods no longer sustain the weight
and the white water streams are encased
in the fierce cold?

Dissolve the cold; generously pile wood
on the hearth, and liberally, from
the big Sabine jugs, O Thaliarchus,
bring on the pure, four year old wine.

Leave the rest to the gods just when they've
muffled the winds fighting fiercely the
boiling seas, now neither the cypress
nor the old ash are able to stir.

Whatever tomorrow brings, do not demand,
and what days by chance you're given count a plus
and don't spurn sweet love,
kid, or neglect to dance,

while it is fresh, and morose grey-hair
is absent. Now, revisit the Campus,
and the squares, and soft whispers
in the night, at the hour agreed,

and now the pleasing laugh of a girl
hidden inside a corner reveals her,
and the pledge retrieved from her arm,
or from a poorly resisting finger.

Horace
Ode 1.9

Except that it's in Latin, has weird names in it and is over 2000 years old, this is a modern poem. Horace invented the phrase Carpe diem, Sieze the day! and he fleshes that thought out here. The poem starts in winter when the world is frozen--nothing can move--even fierce winter winds have been suppressed so that the trees are locked and groaning beneath the ice. But humans can act--build a big fire and bring out the good wine. Then the advice starts. The poet urges us to appreciate every second of every day because in our youth we can love and dance. Crabbed old age will come, Horace, warns, but now seek out the trysting places of soft whispers and the pleasant laughs of women who have agreed to meet you and who will let you capture a love token, lightly defended.

My favorite line is near the end about the pleasing laugh of a hidden girl revealing (or betraying) her in a corner and the word for girl, 'puellae' is literally inside the words for pleasing laugh (gratus risus) and she's also surrounded by the words for inside corner (intumo angulo). The image itself is very pleasing but the structure of the sentence conveying the image is near divine.

Frank Sinatra said, "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough." He would have liked this poem.