Friday, August 15, 2008

The Unattainable Ideal

We ought to live
each day as though
it were our last day
here below.

But if I did, alas,
I know
it would have killed me
long ago.

- Piet Hein (1905-1996)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

he-he! It´s as catchy a rime as it is in Danish. It´s been a long while since I read it, but it still makes me smirk in a funny way.

Heidi said...

I love language! One of these days when I am no longer in grad school and when my kids have all graduated, I'd like to become fluent in as many languages as I can. The little I know of other languages has enriched me so much already. People who are multi-lingual are very enriched by it, I think.

Poetry is so hard to translate - to get the meaning across but to also be able to keep the rhyme and meter - amazing! Thanks for your comment on this!