Midsummer Noon

At her window gazes over the elms A girl; she looks on the branching green; But her eyes possess unfathomed realms, Her young hand holds her dreaming chin. Drifted, the dazzling clouds ascend In indolent order, vast and slow, The great blue; softly their shadows send A clearness up from the wall below. An old man houseless, leaning alone By the tree--girt fountain, only heeds The fall of the spray in the shine of the sun, And nothing possessing, nothing needs. The square is heavy with silent bloom; The tardy wheels uncertain creep. Above in a narrow sunlit room, The widower watches his child asleep.