A New Poem from Dave

I know this has nothing to do with chess, but I've just start writing again after three years and thought a few people might be interested in my first effort. It's a translation of Horace, Odes i. ix, and the big question is whether I've created something that works as a poem in English. My grasp of the language is rusty, and I also got caught between sticking to the original text and writing  something which would make sense – the classic translator's dilemma. Anyway, I hope somebody likes it!

See how Soracte looms up, resplendent in white
from a deep coat of snow, and the woods'
straining branches can't carry the load,
and the streams are hard-frozen
by sharp piercing cold.

Cast out the chill, Thaliarchus:
keep piling the firewood high on the hearth
and pour from the wine-jar that's aged
these four winters, the good honest stuff –
just don't hold back.

Everything else we can leave to the gods:
as soon as they've calmed down the warring winds
fighting it out on the turbulent sea,
our cypresses and old ash-trees
will stop shaking once more.

Don't trouble to question what tomorrow
will bring, but put down as a bonus
each new day that Fortune gives you;
you mustn't disdain love's games while you're young,
nor the delights of the dance,

While hoary old age stays away
from the bloom of your youth. Now
as the night falls, it's time to make way
to the town square and plazas, seek
lovers' soft whispers;

Now too the laughter, betraying the sweetheart
concealed in the corner,
the bracelet that slips off her slender pale arm,
the ring off a finger, just faintly resisting.


Notes:

Title: Romans didn't use 'em. They were a lot better at poetry than I.

Stanza 1: Soracte was a mountain about 26 miles north of Rome, probably close to Horace's modest country estate.

Stanza 6: collecting rings, bracelets and the like as a lover's pledge was, it seems, a common game among the amorous young .

The original:

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus
Silvae laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto.

Dissolve frigus ligna super foco
Large reponens atque benignius
Deprome quadrimum Sabina,
O Thaliarche, merum diota.

Permitte divis cetera; qui simul
Stravere ventos aequore fervido
Deproeliantis, nec cupressi
Nec veteres agitantur orni.

Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quaerere et
Quem fors dierum cumque dabit lucro
Adpone, nec dulcis amores
Sperne puer neque tu choreas,

Donec virenti canities abest
Morosa. Nunc et campus et areae
Lenesque sub noctem susurri
Composita repetantur hora;

Nunc et latentis proditor intimo
Gratus puellae risus ab angulo
Pignusque dereptum lacertis
Aut digito male pertinaci.