To a Dying Aurora

O, alas! Aurora, by night’s dream-swept gales driven Upon what hindrance have you visited your journey through The sweet dew-cloakéd clouds of high, silver, austral Heaven? Alas! Your tress is gulfed within the deep night’s pallid blue! I see your rosy light once streaming in a ghostly vapor Producing in thin veils out from your sage-golden rim Like a moth around an ember-gleanéd, silk-thin taper, But now you fled just like a frightened bird from off a limb Of a cypress, of a cedar, of an oak most vast and free Aurora, please come back and thrust your mellow, humble light Against the gleaming coral caves of pearl-laden sea And the flowery, soft bowers of the vast, starry night © 2013 Gleb Zavlanov