| Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Wessex Poems and Other Verses. 1898. |
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| 36. To Outer Nature |
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| SHOW thee as I thought thee | |
| When I early sought thee, | |
| Omen-scouting, | |
| All undoubting | |
| Love alone had wrought thee— | 5 |
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| Wrought thee for my pleasure, | |
| Planned thee as a measure | |
| For expounding | |
| And resounding | |
| Glad things that men treasure. | 10 |
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| O for but a moment | |
| Of that old endowment— | |
| Light to gaily | |
| See thy daily | |
| Irisèd embowment! | 15 |
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| But such readorning | |
| Time forbids with scorning— | |
| Makes me see things | |
| Cease to be things | |
| They were in my morning. | 20 |
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| Fad’st thou, glow-forsaken, | |
| Darkness-overtaken! | |
| Thy first sweetness, | |
| Radiance, meetness, | |
| None shall reawaken. | 25 |
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| Why not sempiternal | |
| Thou and I? Our vernal | |
| Brightness keeping, | |
| Time outleaping; | |
| Passed the hodiernal! | 30 |
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