The Spring has come; the meadows wide
Are gay with all things fair and young;
From rosy morn till eventide
The blithe birds sing the boughs among;
And shouts of happy children sing
In sunlit mead and shady wood,
And all the voices of the Spring
Unite in singing, God is good!

Then swiftly lush-leaved Summer comes,
And merry mowers toss the hay;
While in the cool green forest glooms,
The culvers coo the live-long day.
Bright bloom the lily and the rose—
A fair and stately sisterhood;
And still from dawn to day’s sweet close
All earth is singing, God is good!

Through all the mellow Autumn days,
When bows and fails the golden corn—
While woods in brief bright splendor blaze,
As noon exhales the mist of morn,
And wealth of fruit the branches bends,
And Nature laughs in jocund mood—
With all her gentle mirth there blends
A choral whisper—God is good!

E’en when the wingèd snowflakes fall,
And faded leaves, and grasses sere,
Are hidden ’neath the lovely pall,
New-woven for the passing year—
Old Nature hath a voice which still
By Faith’s keen ear is understood;
And each wild blast which sweeps the hill,
Sings loud and clear that God is good!

Helen Marion Burnside (1841–1923)