Catullus V
I can't claim this is beyond a re-tweak since it's a translation, but I worked on it here, and in 2010 the UK Classical Association published it in its News.
Let’s Live !
Let’s live, Lesbia! Love, and count at much less
than one cent all the fogeys’ rumored sternness.
Our bright sun at the evening swoops, but he’ll show
up gold, glowing at dawn. For you and me, though,
once our glamorous day lets fall its quick light,
we doze on evermore in endless midnight.
Give me smooches! A thousand, then a hundred.
Now the thousand again. A second hundred.
One more thousand and, oh again a hundred,
till we’ve smooshed a tremendous fund of kisses
by your count, and must redistribute incomes
lest some evil-eye guy’ll can see the spilled sums
of our purses, and injure us with curses.
—Catullus 5
Translated from Latin
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