Poetry - 5

The next poem is appropriately enough titled 'Song 5 to Lesbia' by the Roman poet Catullus.  This translation is by an early seventeenth century poet named Richard Crenshaw.

Come and let us live my Deare,
Let us love and never feare,
What the sourest Fathers say;
Brightest Sol that dyes to day
Lives againe as blith to morrow,
But if we darke sons of sorrow
Set; O then, how long a Night
Shuts the Eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell
A Thousand, and a Hundred score
An Hundred, and a Thousand more,
Till another Thousand smother
That, and that wipe off another.
Thus at last when we have numbered
Many a Thousand, many a Hundred;
We'll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose our selves in wild delight:
While our joyes so multiply,
As shall mocke the envious eye.

You sometimes hear teen boys being told that poetry is the key to wooing a girl.  May I humbly submit that this would be one of those poems.  Basically it boils down to 'life is short; let's make out'.  I like it, I really do.  I especially like the part with hundreds and thousands of kisses.  Very good stuff.