The bright sun has been hid so long,–
Such endless rains, such clouds and glooms!
But now, as with a burst of song,
The happy Summer morning blooms.
The brooks are full, it is their youth;
No hint of shrunken age have they;
They shout like children, and in truth,
No human child so careless-gay.
How fresh the woods, each separate leaf
Is shining in the joyful sun.
Strange! I have half forgotten grief;
I think that life has just begun.
In the 1860s Richard Watson Gilder worked as a correspondent and editor of the Newark Daily Advertiser. He frequently took charge of the selection and, sometimes, composition of poetry for its front pages. He went on to co-found the Newark Morning Register in 1869.
The lines above are taken from Gilder’s 1901 collection Poems and Inscriptions.
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