Littell's Living Age/Volume 141/Issue 1822/Spring

Winter has risen to bid his gruff good-bye. I feel the first warm touches of the sun, As of a mother’s hand when work is done. I hear the first lark’s anthem in the sky; I watch the great white clouds go flying by; I note the flowers awaking one by one; And soft airs whisper, "Summer is begun!" O how the soul leaps up exultingly, As it would break its heavy prison-bar! And man seems dearer, God seems nearer, far, For this is truth, deny it how we may, — That light and darkness make us what we are, We are the creatures of our moods, and they Are creatures of the clear or cloudy day.

Dresden