“Spring and Fall” (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

April 22, 2008

[photo by photographer padawan]

This is one of the first "adult" poems I memorized and one of the few I’ve never forgotten. Recent events reinforce what I’ve often said before… this poem has depth and complexity far beyond what is usually accorded to it in its frequent appearance in various anthologies. Of course the most fundamental idea of the poem is simple, but read carefully. And savor the incredible language, in the mastery of which Hopkins has few equals.

"Spring and Fall"

MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! 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.

–Gerard Manley Hopkins
from Poems (1918)

Tags: gerard manley hopkins, poetry, readings