The chirrup of birds is heard. How they do sing! When did they begin? You forgot them in watching the rays of light.
The flowers are each one drinking its drop of quivering dew.
The leaves feel the cool breath of the morning, and are moving to and fro in the invigorating air.
The flowers are saying their morning prayers, accompanied by the matin-song of the birds.
Amoretti, with gauzy wings, are perching on the tall blades of grass that spring from the meadows, and the tall stems of the poppies and field-lilies are swaying, swaying, swaying a minuet motion fanned by the kiss of the gentle breeze.
Oh, how beautiful it all is! How good God is to send it! How beautiful! how beautiful!
But merciful easel! I am forgetting to paint—this exhibition is for me, and I'm failing to improve it. My palette—the brushes—there! there!
We can see nothing—but you feel the landscape is there—quick now, a cottage away over yonder is pushing out of the white mist. To thine easel—go!
Oh! it's all there behind the translucent gauze—I know it—I know it—I know it!
Now the white mist lifts like a curtain—it rises and rises and rises.