Spring never comes abruptly; it makes promises in a longer twilight or a day of warmer sunshine, and then takes them back in a dark week of storm. It gives presages — a thaw, a swelling of maple buds, a greening of grass, a flash of bird wing; then snow falls and winter returns. Again and again spring is here and not here. But fall comes in one day, and stays.

A Sense of Humus (1943)