________________________________________________
Title: To Etesia Looking From Her Casement At The Full Moon
Author: Henry Vaughan [
More Titles by Vaughan]
See you that beauteous queen, which no age tames?
Her train is azure, set with golden flames:
My brighter fair, fix on the East your eyes,
And view that bed of clouds, whence she doth rise.
Above all others in that one short hour
Which most concern'd me,[1] she had greatest pow'r.
This made my fortunes humorous as wind,
But fix'd affections to my constant mind.
She fed me with the tears of stars, and thence
I suck'd in sorrows with their influence.
To some in smiles, and store of light she broke,
To me in sad eclipses still she spoke.
She bent me with the motion of her sphere,
And made me feel what first I did but fear.
But when I came to age, and had o'ergrown
Her rules, and saw my freedom was my own,
I did reply unto the laws of Fate,
And made my reason my great advocate:
I labour'd to inherit my just right;
But then--O, hear Etesia!--lest I might
Redeem myself, my unkind starry mother
Took my poor heart, and gave it to another.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The original has concerned in.
[The end]
Henry Vaughan's poem: To Etesia Looking From Her Casement At The Full Moon
________________________________________________
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
