Hänschen, are you sleeping? I’m coming with a long piece of straw to tickle your ear. 
I need company, I’m sad, and I want to make a confession. 
The last few days I’ve been angry and therefore unhappy and therefore sick. Or was I sick and therefore unhappy and hence angry? I don’t know any more. Now I’m well again, and I vow never, ever again to lend an ear to my inner demons. 
Good lord, don’t I have reason enough to be grateful and joyful, since the sun is shining down on me so and the birds are singing their age-old song. 
The one who has done the most to restore me to reason is a small friend whose image I am sending you. This comrade with the jauntily held beak, steeply rising forehead, and eye of a know-it-all is called the arbour bird. You have surely heard him somewhere because he likes to nest in the thickets of gardens or parks everywhere, you simply haven’t noticed him, just as people for the most part pass by the loveliest things in life without paying attention. 
This bird is quite an oddball. He doesn’t sing just one song or one melody, like other birds, but he is a public speaker, he holds forth, making his speeches to the garden, and does so with a very loud voice full of dramatic excitement, leaping transitions, and passages of heightened pathos. He brings up the most impossible questions, then hurries to answer them himself, with nonsense, makes the most daring assertions, heatedly refuting views that no one has stated, charges through wide open doors, then suddenly exclaims in triumph: Immediately after that he solemnly warns everyone who’s willing or not willing to listen: (He has the clever habit of repeating each witty remark twice.) He never grows tired of filling the garden with the most blatant nonsense, and during the stillness that reigns while he’s giving his speeches, one can almost see the other birds exchanging glances and shrugging their shoulders. 
I don’t shrug mine; instead, I laugh every time with joy. 
You see, I know that his foolish chatter is actually the deepest wisdom and that he’s right about everything. 
Hänschen, you have no idea how blue the sky was today! A soft breath of air stirs the bushes like a whispering promise that the cool of evening is coming soon, relieving the heat of the day. Usually before the evening lock-up I go out for another short half-hour to my little flower beds to water them and to walk around in my garden just a bit more. The hour before sunset has a magic all its own. The sun was still hot, but one gladly allowed its slanted rays to burn on one’s neck and cheeks like a kiss. 
In the sky, which was of a trembling, shimmering blue, two towering white cloud formations were piled high, while a very pale half-moon swam between them as though in a dream. 
The swallows had already begun their every-evening’s flight in full company strength and with their sharp, pointy wings snipped the blue silk of space into little bits, shot back and forth, overtaking one another with shrill cries, and disappearing into the dizzying heights. 
I stood with my little watering can dripping in my hand and felt a tremendous yearning to dive up into that damp, shimmering blueness, to bathe in it, to splash around, to let myself dissolve completely in that dew, and disappear. 
Only one thing torments me: that I shouldn’t be enjoying so much beauty all by myself. I want to shout out loud over the walls: Oh please, pay attention to this marvellous day! 
Don’t forget, as busy as you may be, to quickly raise your head and cast a glance at those great silver clouds and that silent blue ocean in which they are swimming. 
Do take notice as well of the air which is heavy with the passionate breath of the last linden blossoms, and take notice of the resplendence and glory that overlie this day, because this day will never, ever come again! 
This day is a gift to you like a rose in full bloom, lying at your feet, waiting for you to pick it up and press it to your lips.