Calmer than midnight's deepest bush
Is the sun-bright Summer nooning,
With its cloudy shadows seeking rest,
That fall on the hillside swooning.
Great Night with its solemn starry eyes,
Over Day's gate asks us whither We go,
what our password is,
To the camp beyond the river....
"Noonday Rest" (1869; published in All Quiet Along the Potomac and Other Poems, 1879).
