the July noon
do you not hear it -- you ? There are certain events which to each man 's life are as comets to the earth , seemingly strange and erratic portents ; distinct from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our seasons , yet true to their own laws , potent in their own influences . Philosophy speculates on their effects , and disputes upon their uses ; men who do not philosophize regard them as special messengers and bodes of evil . They came out of the little park into a by-lane ; a vast tract of common land , yellow with furze and undulated with swell and hollow , spreading in front ; to their right the dark beechwoods , still beneath the weight of the July noon . Lionel had been talking about the `` Faerie Queene , '' knight-errantry , the sweet impossible dream-life that , safe from Time , glides by bower and hall , through magic forests and by witching eaves in the world of poet-books . And Darrell listened , and the flute-notes mingled with the atmosphere faint and far off , like voices from that world itself . Out then they came , this broad waste land before them ; and Lionel said merrily , -- `` But this is the very scene !