A Noon Interval

A deep, delicious hush in earth and sky —

     A gracious lull—since, from its wakening,

     The morn has been a feverish, restless thing

  In which the pulse of Summer ran too high

  And riotous, as though its heart went nigh

     To bursting with delights past uttering:

     Now—as an o'erjoyed child may cease to sing

All falteringly at play, with drowsy eye

     Draining the pictures of a fairy-tale

  To brim his dreams with—there comes o'er the day

     A loathful silence wherein all sounds fail

  Like loitering sounds of some roundelay . . .

     No wakeful effort longer may avail —

  The wand waves, and the dozer sinks away.