| Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921. |
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| II. The Children of the Night |
| 28. Horace to Leuconoë |
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| I PRAY you not, Leuconoë, to pore | |
| With unpermitted eyes on what may be | |
| Appointed by the gods for you and me, | |
| Nor on Chaldean figures any more. | |
| ’T were infinitely better to implore | 5 |
| The present only:—whether Jove decree | |
| More winters yet to come, or whether he | |
| Make even this, whose hard, wave-eaten shore | |
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| Shatters the Tuscan seas to-day, the last— | |
| Be wise withal, and rack your wine, nor fill | 10 |
| Your bosom with large hopes; for while I sing, | |
| The envious close of time is narrowing;— | |
| So seize the day, or ever it be past, | |
| And let the morrow come for what it will. | |
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