Author: Franklin P. Adams
It is not right for you to know, so do not ask, Leuconoe,
How long a life the gods may give or ever we are gone away;
Try not to read the Final Page, the ending colophonian,
Trust not the gypsy's tea-leaves, nor the prophets Babylonian.
Better to have what is to come enshrouded in obscurity
Than to be certain of the sort and length of our futurity.
Why, even as I monologue on wisdom and longevity
How Time has flown! Spear some of it!
The longest life is brevity.
AD LEUCONOEN
Horace: Book I, Ode 13.
"Tu ne quoesieris, scire nefas--"
It is not right for you to know, so do not ask, Leuconoe,
How long a life the gods may give or ever we are gone away;
Try not to read the Final Page, the ending colophonian,
Trust not the gypsy's tea-leaves, nor the prophets Babylonian.
Better to have what is to come enshrouded in obscurity
Than to be certain of the sort and length of our futurity.
Why, even as I monologue on wisdom and longevity
How Time has flown! Spear some of it!
The longest life is brevity.
[The end]
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