Binsey Poplars

Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844 (Stratford, London) – 1889 (Dublin)



(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 swam or sank
On meadow and river and 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 so 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.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified by on February 22, 2021

41 sec read
180

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABACBCXC DDEFFGGEFHXHHEEE
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 723
Words 139
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 16

Gerard Manley Hopkins

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