noon
Copyright , 1921 , by Charles Wadsworth Camp . THE PARTING GENIUS -LSB- 7 -RSB- #By # HELEN COALE CREW From _ The Midland _ '' _ The parting genius is with sighing sent . _ '' #Milton 's # _ Hymn on the Nativity . _ It was high noon , blue and hot . The little town upon the southern slope of the hills that shut in the great plain glared white in the intense sunlight . The beds of the brooks in the valleys that cut their way through the hill-clefts were dry and dusty ; and the sole shade visible lay upon the orchard floors , where the thick branches above cast blue-black shadows upon the golden tangle of grasses at their feet . A soft murmur of hidden creature-things rose like an invisible haze from earth , and nothing moved in all the horizon save the black kites high in the blue air and the white butterflies over the drowsy meadows .