God foresees all future time and hides

what is to come in mist and darkness.

   He smiles if mortals fret

      too much. Make sure you deal calmly

 

with what is here. Everything else

flows by like a river, now gliding peacefully

   in mid-channel down to the Tuscan sea,

      now rolling down uprooted trees

 

and eroded rocks, cattle, and houses

all together with a great roaring of mountains

   and forest along its banks

      as the wild spate whips up

 

its peaceful flow. A man will be happy and in control

of his life if he can say at each day’s end,

   ’I have lived’. Tomorrow Father Jupiter

      can fill the sky with dark cloud

 

or cloudless sunlight, but he will not

annul what is behind us, nor

   will he remake or cancel

      what the flying hour has brought.