No shadow haunts the night.

With light beyond the sun;

And works and days are done.

 A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE.[1]   Fair white bird, what song art thou singing In wintry weather of lands o'er sea? Dear white bird, what way art thou winging, Where no grass grows, and no green tree ? I looked at the far off fields and grey, There grew no tree but the cypress tree, That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May, And whoso looks on it, woe is he. And whoso eats of the fruit thereof Has no more sorrow, and no more love; And who sets the same in his garden stead, In a little space he is waste and dead. We seek a city splendid, With light beyond the sun; Or lands where dreams are ended, And works and days are done. 

With light beyond the sun;

And works and days are done.

 THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME. The weary sails a moment slept, The oars were silent for a space, As past Hesperian shores we swept, That were as a remembered face Seen after lapse of hopeless years, In Hades, when the shadows meet, Dim through the mist of many tears, And strange, and though a shadow, sweet. So seemed the half-remembered shore, That slumbered, mirrored in the blue, With havens where we touched of yore, And ports that over well we knew. Then broke the calm before a breeze That sought the secret of the west; And listless all we swept the seas Towards the Islands of the Blest. Beside a golden sanded bay We saw the Sirens, very fair The flowery hill whereon they lay, The flowers set upon their hair. Their old sweet song came down the wind. Remembered music waxing strong, Ah now no need of cords to bind, No need had we of Orphic song. It once had seemed a little thing, To lay our lives down at their feet, That dying we might hear them sing, And dying see their faces sweet; But now, we glanced, and passing by, No care had we to tarry long; Faint hope, and rest, and memory Were more than any Siren's song. 

The oars were silent for a space,

That were as a remembered face

In Hades, when the shadows meet,

And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.

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