.... or as the Poet Horace put it, "Carpe Diem". I hasten to add I am neither a reader of Horace nor of Herrick. Although I am sure they were both great chaps in their own way. No, I am a reader of PG Wodehouse, and these are quotations of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves - referring to the poets Horace and Herrick.
But how true it is, nonetheless. Yesterday morning dawned clear, sunny - a beautiful blue sky over the South Midlands or, if you prefer, Northern Home Counties. A day to rejoice in, to be glad that one is alive. A day to sing out for joy to God. But, as the Bard of Avon put it:
"Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:"
But the trick, surely, is to enjoy the glorious morning afore the sun ends up with egg on his celestial face. Don't let the thought of the later clouds bother us while we gather rosebuds, make hay while the sunshine, seize what day there is. For sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Consider the lilies, and go and do thou likewise. Don't worry too much about the bridges ahead - we can burn those when we come to them.
As the prophet Arkwright put it, "If I can help someb-b-b-b-body as I travel along..." then I will have made something of the day.
And as another poet said,
"Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me."
Or, to revert to the Master one last time - as the Prophet Fink-Nottle said, ""It's a beautiful world, P.K. Purvis."
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