It seemed as though a spring breeze had melted the snow from the land,
such bourgeoning and blossoming appeared throughout the school.

Creative work was done by fits and starts. If the demon seized upon me,
I raved about for a time as before, but I did my duty for the principal.
I not only honoured but loved him, and censure from his lips would have
been unbearable.

The poem which I was to read on the king's birthday has been preserved,
and as I glanced over it recently I could not help smiling.

It was to describe the life of Henry the Fowler, and refer to the
reigning king, Frederick William IV.

The praise of my hero had come from my heart, so the poem found favour,
and in circles so wide that the most prominent man in the neighbourhood,
Prince Puckler-Muskau, sent for my verses.

I was perfectly aware that they did not represent my best work, but what
father does not find something to admire in his child? So I copied them
neatly, and gave them to Billy, the dwarf, the prince's factotum. A
short time after, while I was walking with some friends in Branitz Park,
the prince summoned me, and greeted me with the exclamation, "You are a
poet!"

These four words haunted me a long while; nay, at times they even echo in
my memory now. I had heard a hundred anecdotes of this prince, which
could not fail to charm a youth of my disposition. When a young officer
of the Garde-du-Corps in Dresden, after having been intentionally omitted