SUMMER NOONTIDE

The slender snail clings to the leaf,

Gray on its silvered underside:

And slowly, slowlier than the snail, with brief

Bright steps, whose ripening touch foretells the sheaf,

Her warm hands berry-dyed,

Comes down the tanned Noontide.

The pungent fragrance of the mint

And pennyroyal drench her gown,

That leaves long shreds of trumpet-blossom tint

Among the thorns, and everywhere the glint

Of gold and white and brown

Her flowery steps waft down.

The leaves, like hands with emerald veined,

Along her way try their wild best

To reach the jewel — whose hot hue was drained

From some rich rose that all the June contained —

The butterfly, soft pressed

Upon her sunny breast.

Her shawl, the lace-like elder bloom,

She hangs upon the hillside brake,

Smelling of warmth and of her breast's perfume,

And, lying in the citron-colored gloom

Beside the lilied lake,

She stares the buds awake.

Or, with a smile, through watery deeps

She leads the oaring turtle's legs;

Or guides the crimson fish, that swims and sleeps,

From pad to pad, from which the young frog leaps;

And to its nest's green eggs

The bird that pleads and begs.

Then‘ mid the fields of unmown hay

She shows the bees where sweets are found;

And points the butterflies, at airy play,

And dragonflies, along the water-way,

Where honeyed flowers abound

For them to flicker‘ round.

Or where ripe apples pelt with gold

Some barn — around which, coned with snow,

The wild-potato blooms — she mounts its old

Mossed roof, and through warped sides, the knots have holed,

Lets her long glances glow

Into the loft below.

To show the mud-wasp at its cell

Slenderly busy; swallows, too,

Packing against a beam their nest's clay shell;

And crouching in the dark the owl as well

With all her downy crew

Of owlets gray of hue.

These are her joys, and until dusk

Lounging she walks where reapers reap,

From sultry raiment shaking scents of musk,

Rustling the corn within its silken husk,

And driving down heav'n' s deep

White herds of clouds like sheep.