Binsley Poplars
felled 1879
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

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 & river & 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 só 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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