Catholic Exchange

Spring and Fall

Written by

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

in

 

to a young child

 

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
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.

Comments

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    Guest

    God loves you .

    Hear! Hear!

    For those of you who have noted my enigmatic ways of expression, the good Hopkins wrote this for a child clearly just becoming aware of autumnal deciduity, if you will. Yet, all Margaret really needed were the alpha and the omega:
    “Margaret, are you grieving . . . It is Margaret you mourn for.”

    More, I beg, more – the good Hopkins is ‘hard to follow’ nearly exactly because he is ‘hard to follow’.

    Remember, I love you, too

    Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,

    Pristinus Sapienter

    (wljewell @catholicexchange.com or … yahoo.com)

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