noon
The torpor of the physical appears to leave to the mental frame a full scope and power ; the absence of human cares , sounds , and intrusions , becomes the best nurse to contemplation ; and even that delicious and vague sense of enjoyment which would seem , at first , more genial to the fancy than the mind , preserves the thought undisturbed because contented ; so that all but the scheming mind becomes lapped in sleep , and the mind itself lives distinct and active as a dream , -- a dream , not vague nor confused nor unsatisfying , but endowed with more than the clearness , the precision , the vigour , of waking life . A little way from this waterfall was a fountain , a remnant of a classic and golden age . Never did Naiad gaze on a more glassy mirror , or dwell in a more divine retreat . Through a crevice in an overhanging mound of the emerald earth , the father stream of the fountain crept out , born , like Love , among flowers , and in the most sunny smiles ; it then fell , broadening and glowing , into a marble basin , at whose bottom , in the shining noon , you might see a soil which mocked the very hues of gold , and the water insects , in their quaint shapes and unknown sports , grouping or gliding in the mid-most wave . A small temple of the lightest architecture stood before the fountain , and in a niche therein a mutilated statue , -- possibly of the Spirit of the place . By this fountain my evening walk would linger till the short twilight melted away and the silver wave trembled in the light of the western star . Oh , then what feelings gathered over me as I turned slowly homeward !