WHEN I look forth at dawning, pool,
⁠Field, flock, and lonely tree,
⁠All seem to look at me
Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;

⁠Their faces dulled, constrained, and worn,
⁠As though the master's ways
⁠Through the long teaching days
Their first terrestrial zest had chilled and overborne.

⁠And on them stirs, in lippings mere
⁠(As if once clear in call,
⁠But now scarce breathed at all)—
"We wonder, ever wonder, why we find us here!

⁠"Has some Vast Imbecility,
⁠Mighty to build and blend,
⁠But impotent to tend,
Framed us in jest, and left us now to hazardry?

⁠"Or come we of an Automaton
⁠Unconscious of our pains? . . .
⁠Or are we live remains
Of Godhead dying downwards, brain and eye now gone?

⁠"Or is it that some high Plan betides,
⁠As yet not understood,
⁠Of Evil stormed by Good,
We the Forlorn Hope over which Achievement strides?"

⁠Thus things around. No answerer I. . . .
⁠Meanwhile the winds, and rains,
⁠And Earth's old glooms and pains
Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbors nigh.