noon
And yet , perhaps , in another planet my monad would have frisked and jumped and danced and seesawed with congenial monads , as contentedly and as sillily as do the monads of men and gnats in this alien Vale of Tears . '' Kenelm had just arrived at that conjectural solution of his perplexities when a voice was heard singing , or rather modulated to that kind of chant between recitative and song , which is so pleasingly effective where the intonations are pure and musical . They were so in this instance , and Kenelm 's ear caught every word in the following song : -- CONTENT . `` There are times when the troubles of life are still ; The bees wandered lost in the depths of June , And I paused where the chime of a silver rill Sang the linnet and lark to their rest at noon . `` Said my soul , ` See how calmly the wavelets glide , Though so narrow their way to their ocean vent ; And the world that I traverse is wide , is wide , And yet is too narrow to hold content ' `` O my son , never say that the world is wide ; The rill in its banks is less closely pent : It is thou who art shoreless on every side , And thy width will not let thee enclose content . '' As the voice ceased Kenelm lifted his head . But the banks of the brook were so curving and so clothed with brushwood that for some minutes the singer was invisible .