_Orpheus:_ Fair as the lightning 'thwart the sky, As sun-dyed snow upon the high Untrodden heaps of threatening stone The eagle looks upon alone, Oh, fair as the doomed victim's wreath, Oh, fair as deadly sleep and death, What will ye with them, earthly men, To mate your threescore years and ten? Toil rather, suffer and be free, Betwixt the green earth and the sea. _The Sirens:_ If ye be bold with us to go, Things such as happy dreams may show Shall your once heavy lids behold About our palaces of gold; Where waters 'neath the waters run, And from o'erhead a harmless sun Gleams through the woods of chrysolite. There gardens fairer to the sight Than those of the Phæacian king Shall ye behold; and, wondering, Gaze on the sea-born fruit and flowers, And thornless and unchanging bowers, Whereof the May-time knoweth naught. So to the pillared house being brought, Poor souls, ye shall not be alone, For o'er the floors of pale blue stone All day such feet as ours shall pass, And 'twixt the glimmering walls of glass, Such bodies garlanded with gold, So faint, so fair, shall ye behold, And clean forget the treachery Of changing earth and tumbling sea. _Orpheus:_ Oh the sweet valley of deep grass, Where through the summer stream doth pass, In chain of shadow, and still pool, From misty morn to evening cool; Where the black ivy creeps and twines O'er the dark-armed, red-trunkèd pines. Whence clattering the pigeon flits, Or brooding o'er her thin eggs sits, And every hollow of the hills With echoing song the mavis fills. There by the stream, all unafraid, Shall stand the happy shepherd maid, Alone in first of sunlit hours; Behind her, on the dewy flowers, Her homespun woolen raiment lies, And her white limbs and sweet gray eyes Shine from the calm green pool and deep, While round about the swallows sweep, Not silent; and would God that we, Like them, were landed from the sea.