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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


APRIL NOON by WILLIAM BRIAN HOOKER

First Line: SILENCE. FAINT WARMTH OF THE AWAKENING SUN
Last Line: ONLY IN THIS, THAT THERE IS NO MORE PAIN.

Silence. Faint warmth of the awakening sun
Drowned in pale light. The meadows lapse away --
Ridges of brown and slopes of sallow gray --
To where the leafless hills are dusky-dun.
Earth holds her breath, and waits while slowly run
The ordered hours in pitiless delay;
Fearing the vanished snows of yesterday,
Nor daring yet to deem the Summer won.

As a sick woman from the house of death
But newly ransomed, overweak to care
For life renewed and love made warm again,
Faints slowly back to life with each calm breath,
Finding a joy almost too keen to bear
Only in this, that there is no more pain.



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