Spring and Fall

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/hopkins/section4.rhtml

quote:

“Spring and Fall” [Gerard Manley Hopkins]

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.

Summary

The poem opens with a question to a child: “Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving?” “Goldengrove,” a place whose name suggests an idyllic play-world, is “unleaving,” or losing its leaves as winter approaches. And the child, with her “fresh thoughts,” cares about the leaves as much as about “the things of man.” The speaker reflects that age will alter this innocent response, and that later whole “worlds” of forest will lie in leafless disarray (“leafmeal,” like “piecemeal&rdquo😉 without arousing Margaret’s sympathy. The child will weep then, too, but for a more conscious reason. However, the source of this knowing sadness will be the same as that of her childish grief—for “sorrow’s springs are the same.” That is, though neither her mouth nor her mind can yet articulate the fact as clearly as her adult self will, Margaret is already mourning over her own mortality.

unquote.

Originally posted by JS357
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/hopkins/section4.rhtml

quote:

“Spring and Fall” [Gerard Manley Hopkins]

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 col ...[text shortened]... clearly as her adult self will, Margaret is already mourning over her own mortality.

unquote.

That's a great poem, thanks for posting JS357. Not sure if this is the place for it, but it put me in mind of another wonderful work, this by Louis MacNeice. I can't read it without welling up, I really can't.

The Sunlight on the Garden

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
That's a great poem, thanks for posting JS357. Not sure if this is the place for it, but it put me in mind of another wonderful work, this by Louis MacNeice. I can't read it without welling up, I really can't.

The Sunlight on the Garden

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
Wh ...[text shortened]... to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

" Not sure if this is the place for it..."

I think posting such poetry here fulfills a sense of spirituality, whereas the usual things posted here detract from it. However, it is fitting too that such poems don't stimulate arguments, which means they won't and shouldn't be expected to get many replies.

MacNeice's early life is interesting as are the lives of so many people who dedicate themselves to poetry. We can see what shaped their particular path toward the pensive life, he said alliteratively. Thanks.

Originally posted by JS357
" Not sure if this is the place for it..."

I think posting such poetry here fulfills a sense of spirituality, whereas the usual things posted here detract from it. However, it is fitting too that such poems don't stimulate arguments, which means they won't and shouldn't be expected to get many replies.

MacNeice's early life is interesting as are the live ...[text shortened]... what shaped their particular path toward the pensive life, he said alliteratively. Thanks.

Agreed. Poetry definately fits in the spiritual category

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.


And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,


And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.


—William Blake, “The Garden of Love”

Originally posted by JS357
http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/hopkins/section4.rhtml

quote:

“Spring and Fall” [Gerard Manley Hopkins]

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 col ...[text shortened]... clearly as her adult self will, Margaret is already mourning over her own mortality.

unquote.

Another Welsh poet:

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.


And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.


All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.


And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.


And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,


Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.


—Dylan Thomas, “Fern Hill”

Sam I Am, I don't like green eggs and ham, Sam I Am!

Red Fish Blue Fish!

Originally posted by vistesd

That's deep!!

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Sam I Am, I don't like green eggs and ham, Sam I Am!

Red Fish Blue Fish!

Thus endeth this thread, I suppose. The internet is a place to learn how your sincerest offerings can be trivialized. It toughens you. It need not deter you, when you might be so inspired.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
That's deep!!

LOL. I posted a small poem of my own, but it couldn't stand with Blake (or anywhere near Blake--or Hopkins or Macneice or Thomas), so I wisely withdrew.

Originally posted by vistesd
LOL. I posted a small poem of my own, but it couldn't stand with Blake (or anywhere near Blake--or Hopkins or Macneice or Thomas), so I wisely withdrew.

Meh, poetry is like music in some ways. 99% of people may dislike it , but if you "move" just one person with your words, then is it not worth it ?