28. Horace to Leuconoë

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

The present only:—whether Jove decree

More winters yet to come, or whether he

Make even this, whose hard, wave-eaten shore

Shatters the Tuscan seas to-day, the last—

Be wise withal, and rack your wine, nor fill

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.