First Poem that Impacted You

[hobbit86]

I remember reading poetry at school, and enjoying them once I understood what they meant (somewhat got confused by the older language with 'thee' 'thou' etc), but the first poem I remember reading that I had found whilst finding my own poets and poems in free time was 'Happy The Man' by Quintus Horatius Flaccus...I think I must have been about 16...

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who secure within can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Be fair or foul, or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate are mine.
Not heaven itself, upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

I must admit, I did like this poem when I first came across it...but it was only a year or so back when I rediscovered it scribbled in the back of an old 'teen' sketch book of mine that I really valued it's meaning...