A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day - John Donne
A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day by John Donne
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.
But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.
In the Mid-Midwinter by Liz Lochhead
In the Mid-Midwinter by Liz Lochhead At midday on the year’s midnight into my mind came I saw the new moon late yestreen wi the auld moon in her airms though, no, there is no moon of course, there’s nothing very much of anything to speak of in the sky except a gey dreich greyness rain-laden over Glasgow and today there is the very least of even this for us to get but the light comes back the light always comes back and this begins tomorrow with however many minutes more of sun and serotonin. Meanwhile there will be the winter moon for us to love the longest, fat in the frosty sky among the sharpest stars, and lines of old songs we can’t remember why we know or when first we heard them will aye come back once in a blue moon to us unbidden, bless us with their long-travelled light.
