Ode to Helios

I bade her meet me atop Ninny’s tomb,

During an eclipse of the sun and moon

And kissed her soft inside a fairie ring,

Unknowing that she was a fickle thing

And in a moment changed to spirit form

Leaving me lonely in my waning morn.

Within a fortnight she had come again,

Perched quiet upon my lowly window then

And she beckoning towards the setting sun

Said “Let us linger til the world is done.”

To this, I swore, I would give no reply,

But touching on her fingers out she fly

Streaking ‘cross the sky, a stripe of white stars

Hiding herself behind bright and bounding Mars

And just peaking out so just I could see,

Thus the fey repeatedly haunted me.

By and by she slowly faded hence,

Drawn to another younger poet’s fence

To taunt and tease him to her dark desire,

And left my heart burning in fairie fire

That now when I see one afflicted thus,

And she giving every kind of fuss

At his failure to please the fairie queen,

I see her gleaming eyes light upon me

But from it and her I must turn away.

I say: “Taunt me again some other day.”

And on and on to me she’s looking back,

Cursing young poets for what that they lack.

Since now I am old as the swollen sun,

I look towards when my days are lastly done

And encas’d in my downy star’s nest,

Where I planned to take my final rest

She light upon my vestal pillow there,

Relishing in my look of great despair

When she breathe into me one last verse

To inspire and wickedly to inverse

What may be heaven fleetingly on earth,

To have escap’d my Muse’s curse.