The Decameron

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Noon with a depth of shadow beneath the trees
  Shakes in the heat, quivers to the sound of lutes:
  Half shaded, half sunlit, a great bowl of fruits
  Glistens purple and golden: the flasks of wine
  Cool in their panniers of snow: silks muffle and shine:
  Dim velvet, where through the leaves a sunbeam shoots,
  Rifts in a pane of scarlet: fingers tapping the roots
  Keep languid time to the music's soft slow decline.

  Suddenly from the gate rises up a cry,
  Hideous broken laughter, scarce human in sound;
  Gaunt clawed hands, thrust through the bars despairingly,
  Clutch fast at the scented air, while on the ground
  Lie the poor plague-stricken carrions, who have found
  Strength to crawl forth and curse the sunshine and die.

© Aldous Huxley