noon

He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he canbring thysummerout of winter, though thou have no spring† God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noontoillustrateall shadows,asthesheavesinharvestto fill all penuries. All occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.

—Donne,John

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair.

—Keats,John

   The insect youth are on the wing, Eager to taste the honeyed spring, And float amid the liquid noon: Some lightly o'er the current skim, Some show their gaily-gilded trim Quick-glancing to the sun.

—Gray,Thomas

Sometimes these cogitations still amaze The troubled midnight and the noon's repose.

—Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)

And missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way; And oft as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

—Milton,John

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.

—Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)

Rise not till noon, if life be but a dream, As Greek and Roman poets have exprest: Add good example to so grave a theme, For he who sleeps the longest lives the best.

—Prior, Matthew

With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon 840 Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers.

—Tennyson

The cowboys had lived for months under the great bowl of the sky, and yet the Montana skies seemed deeper than the skies of Texas or Nebraska. Their depth and blueness robbed even the sun of its harsh forceöit seemed smaller, in the vastness, and the whole sky no longer turned white at noon as it had in the lower plains. Always, somewhere to the north, there was a swath of blueness, with white cloads floating in it like petals in a pond. 537

—McMurtry, LarryJeff

The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is pastöthere is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been!

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe