For Goethe, summer is the "good season" in which he experiences the abundance of nature. The light of the long days, heightened by the joy of his Italian journey, is poetically celebrated in many works. The allure of summer nights, the looming thunderstorm, and the reconciling rainbow all belong to life in its most intense form. Time and again, it is the "glorious sun" that is praised even into old age, and the rose, invoked as a symbol of love, beauty, and discretion, reappears repeatedly.