Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
Binsey Poplars
felled /79
1My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled ,
2 Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
3Áll félled, félled, are áll félled;
4 Of a fresh & following folded rank
5 Not spared, not one
6That dandled a sandalled
7 Shadow that swam or sank
8 On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
9 O if we but knew what we do
10 When we delve or hew --
11 Hack & rack the growing green!
12 Since country is so tender
13 To tóuch, her béing só slénder,
14 That, like this sleek & seeing ball
15 But a prick will make no eye at all,
16 Where we, even where we mean
17 To mend her we end her,
18 When we hew or delve:
19 After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
20 Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
21 Strokes of havoc unselve
22 The sweet especial scene,
23 Rural scene, a rural scene,
24 Sweet especial rural scene.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: The Later Poetic Manuscripts of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile, ed. Norman H. MacKenzie (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991): 161. PR 4803 H44A6 1991 Robarts Library
First publication date:
1918
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/14
Composition date:
1879
Rhyme: abacbaccddeffggefhehheee
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