Frisk, dance, and sing, and have your fling,
Unharmed, unawed of crabbed Age.

Let's steal content from Winter's wrath,
And glory in the artful theft,
That years from now folks shall allow
'T was cold indeed when we got left.

So where the whisperings and the mirth
Of girls invite a sportive chap,
Let's fare awhile,--aha, you smile;
You guess my meaning,--_verbum sap_.




A ROMAN WINTER-PIECE

II

Now stands Soracte white with snow, now bend the laboring trees,
And with the sharpness of the frost the stagnant rivers freeze.
Pile up the billets on the hearth, to warmer cheer incline,
And draw, my Thaliarchus, from the Sabine jar the wine.

The rest leave to the gods, who still the fiercely warring wind,
And to the morrow's store of good or evil give no mind.
Whatever day your fortune grants, that day mark up for gain;
And in your youthful bloom do not the sweet amours disdain.