James Whitcomb Riley

7 October 1849 - 22 July 1916 / Greenfield, Indiana

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.
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