noon
`` This beautiful springtime has temporarily baffled the disease , but for me there can be no restoration . Day by day I feel the ebbing of strength and energy , and the approach of my deliverer , death ; but I realize also , what the Centaur uttered to Melampus , ` I decline unto my last days calm as the setting of the constellations ; but I feel myself perishing and passing quickly away , like a snow-wreath floating on the stream . ' '' As he looked at the thin , pure face where May sunshine streamed warm and bright , and marked the perfect peace that brooded over the changed features , Dr. Grey was reminded of the lines that might have been written for her , so fully were they suited to her case , -- `` I saw that one who lost her love in pain , Who trod on thorns , who drank the loathsome cup ; The lost in night , in day was found again ; The fallen was lifted up . They stood together in the blessed noon , They sang together through the length of days ; Each loving face bent sunwards , like a moon New-lit with love and praise . '' `` My friend , the shadows are passing swiftly from your life , and , in the mild radiance of its close , you can well afford to forget the storms that clouded its dawn . '' `` Forget ? No , Dr. Grey , I neither endeavor nor desire to forget the sorrows that first taught me the emptiness of earthly things , the futility of human schemes , -- that snapped the frail reed of flesh to which I clung , and gave me , instead , the blessed support , the immovable arm of an everlasting God .