Noon

Noon! and in the garden bower The hot air quivers o’er the grass, The little lake is smooth as glass And still so heavily the hour Drags, that scarce the proudest flower Pressed upon its burning bed Has strength to lift a languid head: —Rose and fainting violet By the water’s margin set Swoon and sink as they were dead Though their weary leaves be fed With the foam-drops of the pool Where it trembles dark and cool Wrinkled by the fountain spraying O’er it. And the honey-bee Hums his drowsy melody And wanders in his course a-straying Through the sweet and tangled glade With his golden mead o’erladen, Where beneath the pleasant shade Of the darkling boughs a maiden —Milky limb and fiery tress, All at sweetest random laid— Slumbers, drunken with the excess Of the noontide’s loveliness.