1Lovely Aurora
, O how heavenly fair 2Does she appear with her disheveled hair
3Pearled over with odors of the early East—
4How infinitely she doth our senses feast!
5She needs no gems her snowy neck to adorn,
6For what can luster add unto the morn?
7Her right hand holds forth light unto our view;
8The other sprinkles aromatic dew
9On Flora’s
fragrant, various-colored flowers, 10Attended by a train of fleeting Hours
11Drawn by white palfreys
, first of that kind, 12Now since produced by snuffing
up the wind
; 13Thus, as in silver coach
she’s hurled, 14She both enlightens and perfumes the world.
15Then after hurries that illustrious star
16Who rides, triumphant, in his blazing car
, 17Before whose face shines forth perpetual day,
18Exhaling and expelling mists away,
19And to her throws his wanton amorous eyes;
20But like a virgin coy, she, blushing, flies.
21He, filled with love and rage for her disdain,
22Upon his foaming
horses lays his rein, 23Gaining Olympus’s
top with furious speed, 24Lashing their pampered sides until they bleed.
25When these vermilion
drops to Earth descend 26They amaze poor mortals, fearing they portend
27Unto some ancient monarchy confusion,
28Or, to some Hydrian monster
, dissolution, 29When, oftentimes, the cause is from above:
30From radiant Delius’s
frantic fits of love, 31Who follows her with heat and greater light,
32Leaving this horoscope
to horrid Night
, 33Whose furious issue
straight their curls unrolls 34To lash and torture poor afflicted souls.
35Anathemized
are those that do delight 36To add afflictions to the afflicted wight
; 37And of her spurious
breed (no doubt) they be 38That look with joy on others’ misery.
39Oft times they crawl into my trembling breast,
40That I choose strangling rather than such rest;
41Sometimes they take advantage of my fear:
42Then strange Cimmerian
sights seem to appear 43Unto my troubled fancy; then again
44They take advantage from my grief or pain,
45Presenting death in his most horrid shape:
46Then, of my reason, straight they make a rape
; 47Then my sad soul doth see before her eye
48Some of my friends (aye me) that late did die,
49Whose loss fills my poor heart so full of grief
50That nought but death can give my soul relief—
51For then I placed shall be in such a sphere,
52Where Night’s associates I shall never fear.
53O, if I once could lose these rags of clay,
54Then I (poor I) should far outshine the day;
55Then that great God, that ancient is of days
, 56Should be the Alpha and Omega
of my praise.