Read "God's Education" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I SAW him steal the light away / That haunted in her eye: / It went so gently none could say / More than that it was there one day / And missing by-and-by.
I watched her longer, and he stole / Her lily tincts and rose; / All her young sprightliness of soul / Next fell beneath his cold control, / And disappeared like those.
I asked: "Why do you serve her so? / Do you, for some glad day, / Hoard these her sweets-? " He said, "O no, / They charm not me; I bid Time throw / Them carelessly away."
Said I: "We call that cruelty- / We, your poor mortal kind. " / He mused. "The thought is new to me. / Forsooth, though I men's master be, / Theirs is the teaching mind! "