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