noon
He knew the effect of every wind upon them ; the danger from the boisterous north , the glory from the west , the eastern dryness , and the soft , moist tenderness that a south wind left upon their thinning boughs . He spoke all day of their sensations : how they drank the fading sunshine , dreamed in the moonlight , thrilled to the kiss of stars . The dew could bring them half the passion of the night , but frost sent them plunging beneath the ground to dwell with hopes of a later coming softness in their roots . They nursed the life they carried -- insects , larvae , chrysalis -- and when the skies above them melted , he spoke of them standing `` motionless in an ecstasy of rain , '' or in the noon of sunshine `` self-poised upon their prodigy of shade . '' And once in the middle of the night she woke at the sound of his voice , and heard him -- wide awake , not talking in his sleep -- but talking towards the window where the shadow of the cedar fell at noon : O art thou sighing for Lebanon In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious East ? Sighing for Lebanon , Dark cedar ; and , when , half charmed , half terrified , she turned and called to him by name , he merely said -- `` My dear , I felt the loneliness -- suddenly realized it -- the alien desolation of that tree , set here upon our little lawn in England when all her Eastern brothers call her in sleep . '' And the answer seemed so queer , so `` un-evangelical , '' that she waited in silence till he slept again .