The Mother Mourns by Thomas Hardy

When mid-autumn’s moan shook the night-time,And sedges were horny,And summer’s green wonderwork falteredOn leaze and in lane,

I fared Yell’ham-Firs way, where dimlyCame wheeling around meThose phantoms obscure and insistentThat shadows unchain.

Till airs from the needle-thicks brought meA low lamentation,As ’twere of a tree-god disheartened,Perplexed, or in pain.

And, heeding, it awed me to gatherThat Nature herself thereWas breathing in aërie accents,With dirgeful refrain,

Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days,Had grieved her by holdingHer ancient high fame of perfectionIn doubt and disdain . . .

—“I had not proposed me a Creature(She soughed) so excellingAll else of my kingdom in compassAnd brightness of brain

“As to read my defects with a god-glance,Uncover each vestigeOf old inadvertence, annunciateEach flaw and each stain!

“My purpose went not to developSuch insight in Earthland;Such potent appraisements affront me,And sadden my reign!

“Why loosened I olden control hereTo mechanize skywards,Undeeming great scope could outshape inA globe of such grain?

“Man’s mountings of mind-sight I checked not,Till range of his visionHas topped my intent, and found blemishThroughout my domain.

“He holds as inept his own soul-shell⁠—My deftest achievement⁠—Contemns me for fitful inventionsIll-timed and inane:

“No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape,My moon as the Night-queen,My stars as august and sublime onesThat influences rain:

“Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching,Immoral my story,My love-lights a lure, that my speciesMay gather and gain.

“‘Give me,’ he has said, ‘but the matterAnd means the gods lot her,My brain could evolve a creationMore seemly, more sane.’

—“If ever a naughtiness seized meTo woo adulationFrom creatures more keen than those crude onesThat first formed my train⁠—

“If inly a moment I murmured,‘The simple praise sweetly,But sweetlier the sage’⁠—and did rashlyMan’s vision unrein,

“I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners,Whose brains I could blandish,To measure the deeps of my mysteriesApplied them in vain.

“From them my waste aimings and futileI subtly could cover;‘Every best thing,’ said they, ‘to best purposeHer powers preordain.’⁠—

“No more such! . . . My species are dwindling,My forests grow barren,My popinjays fail from their tappings,My larks from their strain.

“My leopardine beauties are rarer,My tusky ones vanish,My children have aped mine own slaughtersTo quicken my wane.

“Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes,And slimy distortions,Let nevermore things good and lovelyTo me appertain;

“For Reason is rank in my temples,And Vision unruly,And chivalrous laud of my cunningIs heard not again!”