Binsey Poplars by Gerard Manley Hopkins Lyrics

felled 1879_

MY aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
Allfelled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
        Not spared, not one
        That dandled a sandalled
Shadow 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 só 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 únselve
        The sweet especial scene,
        Rural scene, a rural scene,
        Sweet especial rural scene.