Happy earth day! Let’s talk aubade.

Also known as the dawn song, the aubade greets the morning with joy and grieves the loss of the night. It flows from the darkness into the brightness of dawn, remembering the togetherness of night between lovers.

The poem comes from as earliest as the twelfth century, but the dawn song transcends borders and can be found in many cultures.

Two great examples of aubade are “The Sun Rising” by John Donne and Emily Skaja’s “Aubade with Attention to Pathos“.

When you write an aubade, pay attention to the theme of passing from night to sunrise, and know that you don’t have to use the parting of lovers, just as Philip Larkin chose not to in his poem “Aubade.”