Example of an Aubade Poem

An aubade is a poem traditionally written to lament the coming of the morning as a sign that two lovers must part, at least for the day. In the Middle Ages, minstrels and troubadors used the aubade to bring out a wide range of emotions related to the most painful love: that which is unrequited.

In the evening, you sing to your love, and that song would be called a serenade. In the morning, however, you sing an aubade. When you read an aubade, it may be formatted as a song about the coming dawn, or the feelings evoked by morning time, or it may focus on the early day's parting dialogue between lovers. An aubade can be a powerful piece of music with those concepts in mind.

The sun is cradled in the lap of midnight, I rest my weary eyes

fitfully resting amid a sea of blankets, until

it peeks, the black ichor of evening draining to a hazy grey.

Through the blinds slits of light appear, expand, travel

down the hard lines of your body, over your long black hair

warmth shared between our bodies, I know nothing less than

the headiest love for you, bright like the morning and hot

like the inferno which hangs now overhead.

This is my aubade, my homage to our love, spanning the nights

and brighter with each dawning day.