Response by Ella Wheeler Wilcox — Read

I said this morning, as I leaned and threw / My shutters open to the Spring's surprise, / "Tell me, O Earth, how is it that in you / Year after year the same fresh feelings rise? / How do you keep your young exultant glee? / No more those sweet emotions come to me.

"I note through all your fissures how the tide / Of healthful life goes leaping as of old; / Your royal dawns retain their pomp and pride; / Your sunsets lose no atom of their gold. / How can this wonder be? " My soul's fine ear / Leaned, listening, till a small voice answered near: