Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call to-day his own; He who, secure within, can say, To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv'd to-day.

More from Imitation of Horace

• And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
• I can enjoy her while she 's kind; But when she dances in the wind, And shakes the wings and will not stay, I puff the prostitute away.
• Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
• A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pygmy-body to decay, And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity; Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high He sought the storms.
• A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
• And all to leave what with his toil he won To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son.