Ballades and Verses Vain
song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers. It is a quiet midland; in the cool Of twilight comes the God, though no man prayed, To watch the maids and young men beautiful Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid, For they are near of kin to Gods, and undismayed. Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep! But with a mist they hide them wondrously, And far the path and dim to where they sleep,— The loved, the shadowy lands along the shadowy deep. 

Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;

That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs,

(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)

With islands where a Goddess walks alone,

Cities, and ships, and unknown Gods, and loves;

And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,

Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;

And love them not, for they are not as these;

At the light's limit, passing careless hours,

Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,

Of twilight comes the God, though no man prayed,

Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid,

The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep!

And far the path and dim to where they sleep,—

 THE DEPARTURE FROM PHÆACIA. THE PHÆACIANS. Why from the dreamy meadows, More fair than any dream, Why will you seek the shadows Beyond the ocean stream? Through straits of storm and peril, Through firths unsailed before, Why make you for the sterile, The dark Kimmerian shore? There no bright streams are flowing, There day and night are one, No harvest time, no sowing, No sight of any sun; No sound of song or 
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