Faust.

The ice is now melted from stream and brook

By the Spring’s genial life-giving look;

Forth smiles young Hope in the greening vale,

And ancient Winter, feeble and frail,

Creeps cowering back to the mountains grey;

And thence he sends, as he hies him away,

Fitfullest brushes of icy hail,

Sweeping the plain in his harmless flight.

But the sun may brook no white,