Nooning

I

Weak winds that make the waters wink;
White clouds that sail from lands of Fable
To white Utopias, vague, that brink
Sky-gulfs of blue unfathomable:
Their rolling shadows, drifting
O’er hills of forest, lifting
Wild peaks of purple range, that loom and sink.

II

Warm knolls, whereon the Summer dreams;
And droning dells, where all her brightness
Lies, lulled with hymns of mountain-streams’
Far-foaming falls of windy whiteness:
Where, from the glooming hollow,
With cawing crows that follow,
The hunted hawk wings wearily and screams.

III

Dry-buzzing heat and drought that shrills
With one harsh locust’s lonesome whirring;
No voice amid the answering hills
Recedes in echoes far-recurring;
As when, with twilight wimpled,
The Morning, rosy dimpled,
From dewy tops called o’er responding rills.

IV

Wan with sweet summer hangs the deep
Hot heaven with the high sun hearted--
A great, wide bluebell bloom asleep
With golden-pistiled petals parted.--
So lone, one would not startle
If from yon wood should dartle
Some wildwood Dream, some Myth the wildwoods keep.