In Spring...

It's 20 March, 2010. The first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

an old man's fancy...
... tumbles fondly over the ever youthful verses of Tennyson:

"In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove;
In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung."

Locksley Hall -- Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

... and he pertly grins as he looks on not at his newspaper.