noon
Here , lost from all men , with the unknown sea between us and all things but the birds and woods and trees and waters and our little selves , was played a thing that was unchanged from the far places we had left , as though we had never left them . While the fields grew greener , and the birds sang , and our house was growing nearer finishing , while Lord Uffē walked in the forest and our ship lay on the beach and our men ate in the hall , my lord , with his yellow hair , and his soft harping , made love to the daughter of Lord Uffē 's dead brother , the betrothed of the friend of Lord Uffē , the great man who had sat in the hall silently when we found welcome there . It was this way . One day , when the noon held all the fields in stillness and the little singing things were silent in the grass , I walked -- for the day was too warm to work in the mid-day -- slowly , along one of the forest paths , just shut off from the glare of the sun in the open by a screen of trees whose leaves hung still in the silence . Then , far before me , I saw at the end of the path two figures , and stopped , I do not know why . I saw who the figures were -- my own lord and Hilda , the betrothed of his friend . They were coming toward me , but their heads were bent down , and they did not yet see me .