Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Gerard Manley Hopkins (18441889)Spring and Fall
To a Young Child MARGARET, are you grieving | |
Over Golden grove unleaving? | |
Leaves like the things of man you | |
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? | |
Ah, as the heart grows older | 5 |
It will come to such sights colder | |
By and by, nor spare a sigh | |
Though world of wanhood leafmeal lie; 1 | |
And yet you will weep and know why. | |
Now no matter, child, the name: | 10 |
Sorrow’s springs are the same. | |
Nor mouth had, no, nor mind expressed | |
What heart heard of ghost guessed: | |
It is the blight man was born for, | |
It is Margaret you mourn for. | 15 |
Note 1. Line 8.—An earlier and plainer reading is, “Though forests low and leafmeal lie.” [back] |