Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Binsey Poplars”

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 dandled a sandalled
     	Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & 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 unselve
           The sweet especial scene,
    	Rural scene, a rural scene,
   	Sweet especial rural scene.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844-1889 – “Pied Beauty” from The Major Works