Rejoice! the shadows whisper low,
Rejoice and let vexations go!
Your life awaits!
A life of leisure, sweet and slow,
A life devoid of care and woe!
Those wily fates
Destroy the ones who think they know,
Who think the cosmos should bestow
On potentates
A dispensation, quid pro quo,
Because we've run this wordly show.
The truth deflates.

I've danced the stars on silver skates
And spun the wake my track creates
Throughout the sky.
I've traced the spoor that demonstrates
A nightmare's passage, soaked in hates
That sting the eye.
I've learned that passion castigates
The watchful mind, equivocates,
And lives the lie.
But destiny accelerates
My wariness. Its stricture grates
And makes me wry.

Mistrusting fortune's termini,
Before I bid my night good-bye,
I'll let it grow,
Will let it stretch and amplify,
Will set it free to lurk and spy,
Incognito.
Reporting back, its brief reply
Will educate and let me try
To quickly throw
A block at fate and make it cry.
Prepared, perhaps we needn't die
To thwart the foe!

Author's Notes:

I've been trying:

For five years to write a virelai ancien for Luna to go with Celestia's virelai nouveau, "Upon Retiring for the Evening." When I wrote that one back in 2015, the idea of the sisters actually retiring had never even entered my mind, but when they did, it got me to thinking. With Luna having just returned from exile, maybe she'd have mixed emotions about stepping aside? At the very least, keep an undercover eye on fate's machinations?

Something like that, anyway...

Mike