Summer Noontide

The slender snail clings to the leaf,     Gray on its silvered underside;     And slowly, slowlier than the snail, with brief     Bright steps, whose ripening touch foretells the sheaf,     Her warm hands berry-dyed,     Comes down the tanned Noontide.     The pungent fragrance of the mint     And pennyroyal drench her gown,     That leaves long shreds of trumpet-blossom tint     Among the thorns, and everywhere the glint     Of gold and white and brown     Her flowery steps waft down.     The leaves, like hands with emerald veined,     Along her way try their wild best     To reach the jewel whose hot hue was drained     From some rich rose that all the June contained     The butterfly, soft pressed     Upon her sunny breast.     Her shawl, the lace-like elder bloom,     She hangs upon the hillside brake,     Smelling of warmth and of her breast's perfume,     And, lying in the citron-colored gloom     Beside the lilied lake,     She stares the buds awake.     Or, with a smile, through watery deeps     She leads the oaring turtle's legs;     Or guides the crimson fish, that swims and sleeps     From pad to pad, from which the young frog leaps;     And to its nest's green eggs     The bird that pleads and begs.     Then 'mid the fields of unmown hay     She shows the bees where sweets are found;     And points the butterflies, at airy play,     And dragonflies, along the water-way,     Where honeyed flowers abound     For them to flicker 'round.     Or, where ripe apples pelt with gold     Some barn around which, coned with snow,     The wild-potato blooms she mount its old     Mossed roof, and through warped sides, the knots have holed     Lets her long glances glow     Into the loft below.     To show the mud-wasp at its cell     Slenderly busy; swallows, too,     Packing against a beam their nest's clay shell;     And crouching in the dark the owl as well     With all her downy crew     Of owlets gray of hue.     These are her joys, and until dusk     Lounging she walks where reapers reap,     From sultry raiment shaking scents of musk,     Rustling the corn within its silken husk,     And driving down heav'n's deep     White herds of clouds like sheep.