Life is short, which makes some say:
‘Do all you can every day,
Fill it hour by hour with more,
Time is but the mortal’s whore.’
Utter nonsense from a fool
Thinking time is just a tool.
I don’t deny life is short,
Why not spend it at some sport?
Leisure, love, and food are fine
And a glass that’s full of wine.
Why the haste? Why the hustle?
We must dance ere our muscle
Is but dust for wind to spread
Out upon the frozen bled.
It is sooner than you think.
I’ll read a book, take a drink,
On the mantle prop my feet
Basking in the rising heat.
There, Death, find me at the end
And sit beside me as a friend.
form: anacreontic; seven syllables
meter: roughly trochaic (stressed, unstressed)
rhyme: couplets