I have two Woodmans to thank for my love of Horace. This is a small extract from a bigger Ode. We can do nothing about the future. Enjoy today.
Translation not my own, it is John Dryden's. It is a little bit free but you get the idea.
ille potens sui Happy the man, and happy he alone,
laetusque deget, cui licet in diem He, who can call today his own:
dixisse "visi: eras vel atra He, who secure within, can say
nube polum pater occupato Tomorrow do your worst, for I have lived today.
vel sole puro; non tamen irritum, Be fair or foul, or rain, or shine,
quodcumque retro est, efficiet, neque The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate
are mine.
diffinget infectumque reddet, Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
quod fugiens semel hora vexit. But what has been, has been, and
I have had my hour.
Horace J. Dryden
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