James Whitcomb Riley
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.