Wessex Poems by Thomas Hardy - 33/48. To Outer Nature (read by Libby Gohn)

XXXIII. 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, O'er expounding and resounding, Glad things that men treasure. O but for a moment of that old endowment, Light to gaily see thee daily, Iris'd embowment! But such re-adorning, Time forbids with scorning, Makes me see things, cease to be things, They were in my morning. Fadest thou, glow forsaken, Thy first sweetness, radiance, meekness, None shall reawaken. Why not sempiternal, Thou and I, Our vernal brightness keeping, Time outleaping, Past the hodierno?