Phoebe

With fleetness you race, a pale argent chariot,
Across powdered track of Indigo calm.
Your cry heralds your hounds of plenty,
Savage children resting in Demeter’s palm.
Your cool beauty ignites the landscape,
Quicksilver flashes accent the deepest night.
Chasing the dawn, your kin’s golden harness,
Washing our sin’s in your gentlest light.

You judge us not nor brand us inhuman,
As we hunt beneath your gaze,
Your golden kin finds us not so easy,
Our ashes spread from his fiery haze.
Lovers and madmen beg to your glory,
Poets and priests worship you too.
Even Poseidon bows down to your wishes,
His very mood follows your cue.

Watch as your hounds play in your tresses,
Tumbling and howling, filled with delight,
The innocent pray you do not turn Gibbous,
And summon in the mare of the night.
The guilty they play free with your license,
An attempt to stay the headman’s axe,
Of these Sweet Phoebe, I am of neither,
For with my soul, I pay you my Tax.

Copyright Tony Bennett 2000