The first flowers did not fill him with the old joy.

He no longer stood up straight, with expanding chest, to drink in the rare sweetness of air weighted with the tonic of balsams and cedar spruce.

Vainly he tried to lift up his soul with the song and bustle of mating things.

There was no longer music for him in the flood-time rushing of spring waters.

An utter loneliness filled the cry of the loon.