Saturday, July 28, 2007

Goldengrove unleaving (Happy Birthday, Gerard)

HopkinsBorn today in 1844 in Stratford, Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favorite poets (still, though I don't agree with his philosophy).

Bless you, Robert Bridges, for publishing his work after he died, in 1888, too young and no longer writing...

The Writers Almanac today features one of his poems I learned by heart long ago...

Spring and Fall
To a Young Child

Margaret, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's spríngs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

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