I sat in my house during the hot noons when no one stirred, and black anger filled my heart.

I wade through its grasses rank and deep, Past slanting marbles mossy and dim, Carven with lines from some old hymn, To one where my mother used to lean On Sunday noons and weep.

A flock's journey is seven miles, ten if pasture fails, in a windless blur of dust, feeding as it goes, and resting at noons.

Without gradation, the vernal days and languid noons were gone in a twinkling.

Not a god, maybe, you have pictured him, not a prince, but surely as a friendthe mysterious Green Friend of the green silence and the golden hush of Summer noons.

Moses, whose grand and awful face Of Sinai's thunder bore the trace, And wise Elias,in his eyes The shade of Israel's prophecies, Stood in that wide, mysterious light, Than Syrian noons more purely bright, One on each hand, and high between Shone forth the godlike Nazarene.

And, under the tufts of this feeble vegetation, the ancient pavement did not cool during the whole summer, smoking from sunset, exhaling in the night the heat stored up from so many sultry noons.

Down the street where her childish feet had pattered in their playing, by the old town pump, where, coming home from school, she used to drink the cool, clear water on summer noons, she passed,a silent shadow.

I move we ride nights and mornings mostly, and loaf noons.

Farewell to the perfect morn's, the balmy twilights, the still heat of the blue noons, the splendor of moon and stars!

And if there were great years of night Before the earth saw noons.

How many a happy assemblage of children and young persons has been, during the past century, repeatedly gathered under its shade, in the sultry noons of summer!

Or will you lie during still noons up among the farmers' fields where myriad bandrol corn-poppies flaunt over your head, and stain your finger-tips with the red berries that hang like globes of light in the palace-gardens of mites and midges, soaking yourself in hot sunshine and south-winds and heavy aromatic earth-scents?" "Come!" said Mrs. Laudersdale, rising earnestly, like one in an eager dream.

In the most sultry silence of summer noons, the vital current is coursing with desperate speed through the innumerable veins of every leaflet; and the apparent stillness, like the sleeping of a child's top, is in truth the very ecstasy of perfected motion.

What region of spice did not recall the noons when they two had trampled the sweet-fern on wide, high New England pastures, and breathed its intoxicating fragrance?

The talk about Waring and Las Cruces had stirred slumbering memories; memories of night rides in New Mexico, of the cattle war, of blazing noons on the high mesas and black nights in huddled adobe towns; Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Caliente, Santa Féand weary ponies at the hitching-rails.

We have carried our lancer's, hussars and dragoons And tugged in the batteries, columns and trains, On pavé that smoked under white summer noons And tracks that washed out under black winter rains.

The farthest thunder that I heard Was nearer than the sky, And rumbles still, though torrid noons Have lain their missiles by.

Then, as horizons step, Or noons report away, Without the formula of sound, It passes, and we stay: A quality of loss Affecting our content, As trade had suddenly encroached Upon a sacrament.

It makes no difference abroad, The seasons fit the same, The mornings blossom into noons, And split their pods of flame.

V. Morns like these we parted; Noons like these she rose, Fluttering first, then firmer, To her fair repose.

The farthest thunder that I heard Was nearer than the sky, And rumbles still, though torrid noons Have lain their missiles by.

Then, as horizons step, Or noons report away, Without the formula of sound, It passes, and we stay: A quality of loss Affecting our content, As trade had suddenly encroached Upon a sacrament.

Umbrageous woods, green dells, and mountains high, And bright cascades, and wide cerulean seas, Slumbering, or snow-wreathed by the freshening breeze, And isles like motionless clouds upon the sky In silent summer noons, late charmed mine eye, Until my soul was stirred like wind-touched trees, And passionate love and speechless ecstasies Up-raised the thoughts in spiritual depths that lie.

The noons of a time long past are making you comfortable in the wintry storm of the present.