noon
While Adrian with poetic fervour discoursed of the glorious nations of the dead , of the beauteous earth and the fate of man , she crept near him , drinking in his speech with silent pleasure . We banished from our talk , and as much as possible from our thoughts , the knowledge of our desolation . And it would be incredible to an inhabitant of cities , to one among a busy throng , to what extent we succeeded . It was as a man confined in a dungeon , whose small and grated rift at first renders the doubtful light more sensibly obscure , till , the visual orb having drunk in the beam , and adapted itself to its scantiness , he finds that clear noon inhabits his cell . So we , a simple triad on empty earth , were multiplied to each other , till we became all in all . We stood like trees , whose roots are loosened by the wind , which support one another , leaning and clinging with encreased fervour while the wintry storms howl . Thus we floated down the widening stream of the Po , sleeping when the cicale sang , awake with the stars .