Thomas Hardy — The Wind Blew Words

The wind blew words along the skies,         And these it blew to me Through the wide dusk: "Lift up your eyes,         Behold this troubled tree, Complaining as it sways and plies;         It is a limb of thee. "Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round -         Dumb figures, wild and tame, Yea, too, thy fellows who abound -         Either of speech the same Or far and strange—black, dwarfed, and browned,         They are stuff of thy own frame." I moved on in a surging awe         Of inarticulateness At the pathetic Me I saw         In all his huge distress, Making self-slaughter of the law         To kill, break, or suppress.