To Pluck the Day

To pluck the day, its budding life,
Is thus to chance belong,
For blossoms still alive today
May be to-morrow gone.

To float up to the skies today,
And touch sun 'fore his leaving,
Is chance to dream, though now awake,
And never cease believing.

Though life in morning's most alive,
And in thy veins runs warmer,
Still tarry not, or thou may miss
What waits thee round the corner.

Though shyness is allure, my love,
Silence can love entomb;
Some blossoms once they've closed, my dear,
Cannot again re-bloom.

Please heed this all from he who knows,
And learned with such a cost,
For once I slept in past her dawn,
And, thus, her love I lost.

Carpe diem: Etymology; Latin ('to pluck the day')

by jason, "awake thee 'fore the dawn"