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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Ruth Tenney

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Noon in the Temple

Ruth Tenney

From “In China”

NOONS drop gently here, and steal on the winds away.

Noons fall silently as flower-petals fall;

From the quiet dream-lit hills they fall

Into the court—petals of oleander falling:

Noons of today, noons of yesterday,

Fragrant noons of centuries ago—

A hush in the wind, the soft tones of a gong

Touched lightly like an ancient song

Begun and never ended. It is so

They come and rest awhile, and then are gone

Upon the wind.