PALLAS AND THE CENTAUR

AFTER A PICTURE BY BOTTICELLI

                                    ‘CENTAUR, sweet Centaur, let me ride on you!’
                                    Her face set forward t’ward delightful hours,
                                    On feet uncertain as spring’s dancing showers,
                                    This Pallas like pale April finds things new;
                                    Yet, conscious-half of much forgotten too,
                                    Asks sparkling questions—tentative of powers
                                    Visits her doings as bees visit flowers.—
                                    ‘Centaur, sweet Centaur, scatter far the dew!
                                    Round the grey sea, beyond the haunted rocks,
                                    Crunching clean pebbles call on Magdalen
                                    And Egypt’s Mary clothed in woolly locks;
                                    Clamber on clouds to Mary-Mother then,
                                    Who, virgin still, there in a palace dwells,
                                    Its roof one silver mass of mellow bells!’

                                                                                                T. Sturge Moore.