noon
The Tree of Life shoots up on the Hill of Incense ; and , but a little farther , that of Knowledge spreads on all sides its deep-planted roots and its innumerable branches , carrying hidden in the golden leafage the secrets of the Godhead , the occult laws of Nature , the truths of morality and of the intellect , the immutable principles of good and of evil . The learning which intoxicates _ us _ is the common food of the Elect ; for in the empire of Sovereign Intelligence the fruit of science no longer brings death . Often do the two great ancestors of the human race come and shed such tears as the Just can still let flow in the shadow of the wondrous Tree . The light which lightens these abodes of bliss is compact of the rose of morning , of the flame of noon , of the purple of even ; yet no star appears on the glowing horizon . No sun rises and no sun goes down on the country where nothing ends , where nothing begins . But an ineffable clearness , showering from all sides like a tender dew , maintains the unbroken -LSB- 36 -RSB- daylight in a delectable eternity . Of course any one who is so minded may belittle this as classically cold ; even as to some extent _ neo _ - classically bedizened ; as more like , let us say , Moore 's _ Epicurean _ than like our greater `` prose-poets '' of the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries .