Hello and welcome to the daily poem. I'm Heidi White and today is Thursday, August 5th.

And today I'm going to read for you a poem by the Duchess of Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish.

Margaret Cavendish was born around 1623 and she lived until 1673. She was an English poet, philosopher, scientist, fiction writer, and playwright. She even experimented with writing science fiction in her time. She's really interesting. And she published in her own name at a time when most women writers remained anonymous.

And so we can actually read her work in its entirety.

And it's quite fascinating.

So today's poem is called A Lady Dressed by Youth.

And this is how it goes.

Her hair was curls of pleasure and delight,

which on her brow did cast a glistening light.

As lace her bashful eyelids downward hung, a modest countenance or her face was flung.

Blushes as coral beads she strung to wear about her neck and pendants for each ear.

Her gown was by proportion cut and made, with veins embroidered, with complexion laid.

Rich jewels of pure honor she did wear.

By noble actions brightened everywhere thus dressed to fame's great court

straight ways she went to dance a brawl with youth love mirth, content.

I really like this poem a lot.

It's fascinating to me.

First off, you can hear the formality of it, right?

It's iambic.

So you have this regular rhythm, this heartbeat type rhythm,

but um, but um, butum, butum, butum.

And then it's also written in couplets.

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