Binsey Poplars - Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

sed diamaccusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaquep. Store veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo.

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.