Binsey Poplars Felled /79

Gerard Manley Hopkins

 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 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 so 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.

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