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Binsey Poplars

felled 1879

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
 Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
 All felled, felled, are all felled;
   Of a fresh and following folded rank
               Not spared, not one
               That dandled a sandalled
        Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind—wandering weed—winding bank.
 
 O if we but knew what we do
        When we delve or hew —
    Hack and rack the growing green!
         Since country is so tender
    To touch, her being só slender,
    That, like this sleek and seeing ball
    But a prick will make no eye at all,
    Where we, even where we mean
                To mend her we end her,
           When we hew or delve:
After—comers cannot guess the beauty been.
 Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
    Strokes of havoc unselve
          The sweet especial scene,
    Rural scene, a rural scene,
    Sweet especial rural scene.
Other works by Gerard Manley Hopkins...



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