Non Vivo ut Edam
Vivis, non ut edas; edis autem, ut vivere possis:
Ut vivam esse decet; vivere, non ut edam.
Source: Giuseppe Gatti, Sales Poetici, Proverbiales, et Iocosi (1703). Meter: Elegiac. This poem plays nicely with the similarity between the Latin verbs esse, "to be," and ēsse "to eat."
You live (vivis) not in order to eat (non ut edas), but you eat (edis autem) so that you can live (ut vivere possis); it is right to eat (esse decet) so that I might live (ut vivam), not to live so that I might eat (vivere non ut edam).
The vocabulary is keyed to the DCC Latin Vocabulary list. There is only one word in this poem that is not on the DCC list:
edō, ēsse: eat
autem: moreover, but, however
decet decēre decuīt: it becomes, it behooves (+ acc. of person, or infinitive)
nōn: not
possum posse potuī: be able
sum, esse, fuī: be, exist
ut, uti: as (+ indic.); so that, with the result that (+ subj.)
vīvō vīvere vīxī victum: live
