noon
She was lying now , deeply at ease , in the copse wood of the valley-head , within a nest of brake-fern , and her colouring was richer , more in tune with the glory of the hour . She had a burnt glow in her cheeks ; her hair showed the hue of the corn which , not a mile away , our people were reaping afield . From where we were , she and I , one could hear the rattle of the machine as it swept down the tall and serried wheat . It was the top of noon when I found her ; the sun high in heaven , but so fierce in his power that you saw him through a mist of his own making , and the sky all about him white as a sea-fog . The Oread 's body was sanguine brown , only her breast , which I saw half-revealed through a slit in her smock , was snowy white . It was the breast of a maiden , not of a mother with a young child . She leaned over it and watched it asleep .