Wessex Poems and Other Verses: To Outer Nature

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
Irised embowment!
But such re-adorning
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 re-awaken.
Why not sempiternal
Thou and I?  Our vernal
   Brightness keeping,
   Time outleaping;
Passed the hodiernal!

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