High Woon 
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 
