Wessex Poems and Other Verses/To Outer Nature

by Thomas Hardy

TO OUTER NATURE

SHOW thee as I thought thee
When I early sought thee,
Omen-scouting,
All undoubting
Love alone had wrought thee—

Wrought thee for my pleasure,
Planned thee as a measure
For expounding
And resounding
Glad things that men treasure.

O for but a moment
Of that old endowment—
Light to gaily
See thy daily
Irisèd embowment!

But such readorning
Time forbids with scorning—
Makes me see things
Cease to be things
They were in my morning.

Fad'st thou, glow-forsaken,
Darkness-overtaken!
Thy first sweetness,
Radiance, meetness,
None shall reawaken.

Why not sempiternal
Thou and I? Our vernal
Brightness keeping,
Time outleaping:
Passed the hodiernal!