'J^xQ?) (Tloon 



recedes; and — heaven? It matters not. Here are my 

 brothers, — the beetle, the moss, the gray stone; and 

 here I lie in the arms of the mother who bore me. 



I have questions to ask — to-morrow; dreams to 

 dream — to-morrow ; things to do — to-morrow. To- 

 day I am free in the fields ; to-day I am brother to 

 the beetle and the stone ; I am neighbor to this 

 ancient white oak in whose shade I lie ; I am child 

 to the earth. It is enough to be to-day. 



How warm is this mother breast, even here, under 

 the tree! The sun is overhead. The summer is at 

 its height. The flood-tide of life has come. It is high 

 noon of the year. 



The drowsy silence of the full, hot noon lies deep 

 across the field. Stream and cattle and pasture-slope 

 are quiet in repose. The eyes of the earth are heavy. 

 The air is asleep. Yet the round shadow of my oak 

 begins to shift. The cattle do not move; the pasture 

 still sleeps under the wide, white glare. But already 

 the noon is passing. 



Of the four seasons summer is the shortest, and 

 the one we are least acquainted with. Summer is 

 only a pause between spring and autumn, only 

 the hour of the year's noon. But the hour is long 



149 



