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
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!