Be Drunk
by Charles Baudelaire
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way.
So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and
bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch,
in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness
already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird,
the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning,
everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is
speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will
answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves
of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue
as you wish.”
1. Does this poet suggest that you seize the day? If so, how?
2. What images, if any, does this poet use? How do these further their message?
3. Does this poet seem to be referencing any other poem in the room? In what
ways does s/he do this?
4. Would this poet agree or disagree with the themes in Odes 1.9 and 1.11? Why?
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
1. Does this poet suggest that you seize the day? If so, how?
2. What images, if any, does this poet use? How do these further their message?
3. Does this poet seem to be referencing any other poem in the room? In what
ways does s/he do this?
4. Would this poet agree or disagree with the themes in Odes 1.9 and 1.11? Why?
Barter
by Sara Teasdale
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And childrens's faces looking up
Holding wonder in a cup.
Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.
Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.
1. Does this poet suggest that you seize the day? If so, how?
2. What images, if any, does this poet use? How do these further their message?
3. Does this poet seem to be referencing any other poem in the room? In what
ways does s/he do this?
4. Would this poet agree or disagree with the themes in Odes 1.9 and 1.11? Why?
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths
by Philip James Bailey
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest:
Lives in one hour more than in years do some
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along their veins.
Life's but a means unto an end; that end,
Beginning, mean, and end to all things—God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
1. Does this poet suggest that you seize the day? If so, how?
2. What images, if any, does this poet use? How do these further their message?
3. Does this poet seem to be referencing any other poem in the room? In what
ways does s/he do this?
4. Would this poet agree or disagree with the themes in Odes 1.9 and 1.11? Why?
A Psalm of Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait.
1. Does this poet suggest that you seize the day? If so, how?
2. What images, if any, does this poet use? How do these further their message?
3. Does this poet seem to be referencing any other poem in the room? In what
ways does s/he do this?
4. Would this poet agree or disagree with the themes in Odes 1.9 and 1.11? Why?
Carpe Diem
by Robert Frost
Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight,
He knew not whether homeward,
Or outward from the village,
Or (chimes were ringing) churchward,
He waited (they were strangers)
Till they were out of hearing
To bid them both be happy.
"Be happy, happy, happy,
And seize the day of pleasure."
The age-long theme is Age's.
'Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
...
But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing—
Too present to imagine.
1. Does this poet suggest that you seize the day? If so, how?
2. What images, if any, does this poet use? How do these further their message?
3. Does this poet seem to be referencing any other poem in the room? In what
ways does s/he do this?
4. Would this poet agree or disagree with the themes in Odes 1.9 and 1.11? Why?
Odes 1.9
by Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Vidēs ut altā stet nive candidum
Sōracte nec iam sustineant onus
silvae labōrantēs gelūque
flūmina cōnstiterint acūtō?
Dissolve frīgus ligna super focō
5
largē repōnēns atque benignius
dēprōme quadrīmum Sabīnā,
ō Thaliarche, merum diōtā.
Permitte dīvīs cētera, quī simul
strāvēre ventōs aequore fervidō
10
dēproeliantēs, nec cupressī
nec veterēs agitantur ornī.
Quid sit futūrum crās, fuge quaerere, et
quem fors diērum cumque dabit, lucrō
appōne nec dulcēs amōrēs
15
sperne puer neque tū choreās,
dōnec virentī cānitiēs abest
mōrōsa. Nunc et campus et āreae
lēnēsque sub noctem susurrī
compositā repetantur hōrā, 20
nunc et latentis prōditor intimō
grātus puellae rīsus ab angulō
pignusque dēreptum lacertīs
aut digitō male pertinācī.
Odes 1.11
by Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Tū nē quaesieris (scīre nefās) quem mihi, quem tibi
fīnem dī dederint, Leuconoē, nec Babylōniōs
temptāris numerōs. Vt melius quicquid erit patī!
Seu plūrīs hiemēs seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositīs dēbilitat pūmicibus mare
5
Tyrrhēnum, sapiās, vīna liquēs et spatiō brevī
spem longam resecēs. Dum loquimur, fūgerit invida
aetās: carpe diem, quam minimum crēdula posterō.