God’s Education Thomas Hardy

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!"