"Where the field stretches toward the north / And setting sun to Hyla brook, I gave it / To flames"

[larryhammer]

Poetry Monday, on a Monday. Imagine that.


Spring and Fall, Gerard Hopkins

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás 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 wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre 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.


(Remember, though, the wanwood leafmeal *does* lie -- very convincingly.)

---L.

Subject quote from "The Bonfire," Robert Frost.

Comments

[sovay]

Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Thank you. I really like Hopkins.

[larryhammer]

So do I.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I can never decide whether "wanwood leafmeal" is an adjective and a noun, or a noun and an adverb.

[larryhammer]

Hopkins is very much into syntactic ambiguity like that. So, it's probably both.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Lovely. This is a favourite. Thank you.

And I've never trusted the wanwood leafmeal...

[larryhammer]

With good reason.