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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SONG OF CHIRON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Under the mountain lawn
Last Line: When their beauty exerts her might.
Alternate Author Name(s): Moore, T. Sturge


UNDER the mountain lawn
Are caverns, yea, there are many
On no cliff face that yawn,
Nor may be reached by any
Fissure, or crevice, or chink
Through which the stoat might slink,
Or winter-dreading snake
His way to their vastness make.

Lakes in those rock-halls sleep,
Huge cisterns, water lanes,
Pure in black darkness and deep,
The storage of old rains;
In corridor, aisle, and transept
As pure and as long have slept
Vast volumes of the night air,
For wind was never there.

Beautiful on the lawn
The hooves of the centaur sound,
Thrilling the peaceful dawn,
And echoing underground:
But maddening, grander, divine
Music, though unenjoyed,
Must float over tarns of the mine,
Which heard would enkindle a bliss
Excelling that on silence buoyed,
When, mute as my worship is,
Round a dome that has all things spanned
The stars unnumbered stand.

I am the centaur, who knows
The beauty of hooves is sound;
And not like the horse that goes
Unenraptured over the ground.
The wisest of men I track,
And take them upon my back;
Pitying their steps so weak,
But entranced to hear them speak.

They say the adventurous mind,
Where thought has yet no roads,
Holds there are yet to find
Vast and divine abodes
In the central secret soul,
Where purpose and grace do roll
Like music tombed in the lawn,
When I gallop for joy at dawn;
Like silence of stars by night,
When their beauty exerts her might.





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