To-night I'll have my friar - let me think
About my room, - I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor
Because I'd heard he had liked the Romantic poets, I was suspicious that this is where Nick Drake got the phrase "pink moon" that he used for both a song and an album, but I didn't really have a way to prove that. But yester-day, I looked up the lyrics for "Pink Moon."- John Keats - "The Castle Builder" (lines 24-30)
Saw it written and I saw it sayThe "saw it written" gave me reason to say that I'm rather confident that Nick Drake did indeed take the phrase "pink moon" from the line-ending words of Keats' poem. Later in the poem, Keats writes, "In letters raven-sombre, you may trace / Old 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.'" (lines 53-55) These are the words that are written on the wall in Daniel 5 that - once interpreted by Daniel - tell Belshazzar that his kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians. They're also words that inspired the phrase "the writing on the wall." Drake's "saw it written" has the same idea as "the writing on the wall." Also, the definitive declaration that Belshazzar's kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians bears some resemblance to Drake's "Pink moon gonna get ye all." Neither of these are things that can be avoided.
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get ye all
And it's a pink moon
I think it's too much of a coincidence that both the phrase "pink moon" and the idea of writing on the wall would appear in both Keats' poem and Drake's song, so I'm pretty sure that "Pink Moon" comes from "The Castle Builder."
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