Not for That City

Not for that city of the level sun,

     Its golden streets and glittering gates ablaze—

     The shadeless, sleepless city of white days,

White nights, or nights and days that are as one—

We weary, when all is said , all thought, all done.

     We strain our eyes beyond this dusk to see

     What, from the threshold of eternity

We shall step into. No, I think we shun

The splendour of that everlasting glare,

   The clamour of that never-ending song.

   And if for anything we greatly long,

It is for some remote and quiet stair

     Which winds to silence and a space for sleep

     Too sound for waking and for dreams too deep.