Ode to Venus

A poem dedicated to Venus, with a form inspired by odes. Dactylic tetrameter catalectic.

Rise in the sky, o bright Goddess of Love!
Challenge the spheres to a contest of light
Shine so your siblings seem dim and obscure
Take up your title of Queen of the Night!

None of your heavenly peers is your match
Jupiter, Saturn, mere specks next to you
Mars but a rusty red spot in the dark
Mercury, quick, though just barely in view

Who could imagine fair Venus outshone?
Who could usurp her celestial throne?

Who but the Moon, that great silvery disk
Full and pale white, like a lotus in bloom
Rises above the horizon and flies
Straight to the Evenstar's radiant room

Straight to the throne of the great astral hall
Bathing the Heavens and Earth in its glow
Venus, deposed in a grand cosmic coup
Bested, she flees from her luminous foe

Woe to the Fallen, once proud, now disgraced
What will you do upon being displaced?

Be not deterred by your loss in the eve
Set your bright eye to a loftier goal
Carve a new niche for yourself in the morn
Don a fresh mantel, assume a new role!

Smolder, o Daystar, o Bearer of Light!
Herald the rise of the bright blazing Sun
Welcome the King as he sits on his throne
Banish the moon, may its coup be undone!

Phosphorus gleams as the night melts away
Proudly she beams as she beckons the day




Notes on the structure: the poem is composed in dactylic tetrameter, with a final catalectic foot. It is organized into three thematically contrasting sections, each of which consists of two quatrains followed by a couplet. The rhyme scheme is ABCB DEFE GG