While discussing carpe diem recently with a friend, I was led to the Golden Dress Song, a gem of a Tang dynasty poem:

劝君莫惜金缕衣, quàn jūn mò xī jīn lǚ yī,

劝君惜取少年时。 quàn jūn xī qǔ shǎo nián shí.

花开堪折直须折, huā kāi kān zhē zhí xū zhē,

莫待无花空折枝 mò dài wú huā kōng zhē zhī.

Here is Victor Mair’s translsation:

I urge you, milord, not to cherish your robe of golden thread,
Rather, milord, I urge you to cherish the time of your youth;
When the flower is open and pluckable, you simply must pluck it,
Don't wait till there are no flowers, vainly to break branches.

When I think of carpe diem, my thoughts drift to gathering rosebuds from To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, to which the Golden Dress Song has been compared:

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to day,
To morrow will be dying.

This has me wanting to read more of «Three Hundred Tang Poems», an anthology that is apparently a gem of Tang dynasty poetry, which itself is a considered a gem of Classical Chinese literature.