Odes From Horace. - To Leuconoe. Book The First, Ode The Eleventh.

LEUCONOE, cease presumptuous to inquire         Of grave Diviner, if successive years      Onward shall roll, ere yet the funeral pyre,         For thee and me, the hand of Friendship rears!      Ah rather meet, with gay and vacant brow,      Whatever youth, and time, health, love, and fate allow;      If many winters on the naked trees         Drop in our sight the paly wreaths of frost,      Or this for us the last, that from the seas         Hurls the loud flood on the resounding coast. -      Short since thou know'st the longest vital line,      Nurse the near hope, and pour the rosy wine.      E'en while we speak our swiftly-passing Youth         Stretches its wing to cold Oblivion's shore;      Then shall the Future terrify, or sooth,         Whose secrets no vain foresight can explore?      The Morrow's faithless promise disavow,      And seize, thy only boast, the GOLDEN NOW.