It is a comely fashion to be glad,— Joy is the grace we say to God. - Jean Ingelow

Nature, before it has been touched by man, is almost always beautiful, strong, and cheerful in man's eyes; but nature, when he has once given it his culture and then forsaken it, has usually an air of sorrow and helplessness. He has made it live the more by laying his hand upon it, and touching it with his life. It has come to relish of his humanity, and it is so flavoured with his thoughts, and ordered and permeated by his spirit, that if the stimulus of his presence is withdrawn it cannot for a long while do without him, and live for itself as fully and as well as it did before.

To bear, to nurse, to rear,
To watch and then to lose:
To see my bright ones disappear,
Drawn up like morning dews.

How short our happy days appear!
How long the sorrowful!