About noon
It was the light of the dawn shining through the square window of my tower . More earnestly than ever , I longed for freedom after this dream ; more drearily than ever , crept on the next wretched day . I measured by the sunbeams , caught through the little window in the trap of my tower , how it went by , waiting only for the dreams of the night . About noon , I started as if something foreign to all my senses and all my experience , had suddenly invaded me ; yet it was only the voice of a woman singing . My whole frame quivered with joy , surprise , and the sensation of the unforeseen . Like a living soul , like an incarnation of Nature , the song entered my prison-house . Each tone folded its wings , and laid itself , like a caressing bird , upon my heart .