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Nooning in Florida, A Poem

The Atlantic Monthly

1874

The morning sun that opened up
  Its disk of grand auroral flower,
As well as the tiny buttercup
  And tamarind clocks that mark the hour,
Now sleeps through all the midday calm
  In furrowed field and grassy meadow,
Or glimmers on the pine and palm
  That stand foot deep in pools of shadow.

The lizard turns from green to mauve,
  Expands his pouch, and bobs, and settles;
The water-lily’s fingered glove
  Half closes on its disk of petals;
The yellow goats-beard goes to sleep;
  The aster nods; the salvia dozes;
The fuchsias wink, and try to keep
  Awake, among the sleepy roses,

Till musing memory shifts the scene;
  A drowsy shadow passes over:
I see the fields of Northern green,
  And smell the musk of Northern clover.
Out of the orchards, drawing near,
  I hear the tired axles creaking,
And I know the wheat is in the ear—
  I hear the whetted scythe a-speaking.

So, summer dozes North and South
  From frosty lake to southern champaign,
And greedy bees, about her mouth,
  Suck honey all the harvest campaign:
While I lie here, in drowsy ease,
  The languid airs about me swooning,
Lulled by the songs of hives of bees,
  In beds of phlox and heart’s-ease, nooning.

by Will Wallace Harney.

Source:
Excerpt from: Harney, Will Wallace. "Nooning in Flordia"
The Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 1874, Volume 33, Issue 196, pg. 165

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