Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Happy First of May!

Can you believe we are so far into 2007? Time used to fly; now it just evaporates. Each morning I read a section in The One Year Bible (NIV), and a poem from A poem a day. Today's poem was "Happy the Man" by John Dryden (August 9, 1631-May 1, 1700). The notes say he was translating Horace, Odes, Book III, xxix. So here is me adjusting Dryden's pronouns translating Horace:
    Happy the woman, happy she alone,
    She who can call today her own:
    She who, secure within, can say,
    Tomorrow do your worst, for I have lived today.
    Be fair or foul or rain or shine
    The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
    Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
    But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

2 comments:

Hazel said...

Thank you for reminding me of this. Says it all, doesn't it

Joan said...

I hadn't heard or thought about that poem for years. Thanks for posting it. That is the kind of poetry I enjoy most.