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 & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
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Comments
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Grieving sickness and death
From guest Deborah (contact)
I have a friend in the hospital who had a stroke, and she had recently experienced the loss of her husband and mother. I woke up this morning with ten of the lines in this poem reciting themselves in my mind. I had not heard it since I studied it in a poetry class after junior year in H.S. It is a powerful poem to come unbidden and a propos after so many years. -
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From guest Steve (contact)
I agree with Mary Fitzgerald, it's a moving poem. I loved it in my mid-twenties. In my mid-thirties, it's message of passing time has a keener resonance. Shakespeare's 'a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing...' shares a similar sentiment. Aging is inevitable, but few poets/writers capture it as well as Hopkins or Shakespeare. -
From guest Mary Fitzgerald (contact)
This poem, along with Robert Frost's two poems: "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and "Reluctance" weave a thread into my mind each end-of-fall. (I live in New England but grew up in LA.) All three poems express the inevitability of our mortality and the passing of time, something we cannot stop. Hopkins's poem is all the more moving to me as it is addressed to a young girl who has yet to experience the passage of time and the pain that is experienced by our aging. As the comment says below "age will alter her innocence." How true this is. What Margaret is really mourning is her own fleeting mortality, although she is too young to know this. Love this painful yet powerful poem. -
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Margaret's Grieving
From guest Tess (contact)
This is so beautiful, it's painful. I heard it referenced and looked it up (so love the internet!) and it's stayed with me for two days. Such a basic concept, fear of and grief over mortality, expressed in a way that speaks to the heart. -
Margaret's Grieving
From guest Robert E. Auclair (contact)
Thank you for posting this beautiful poem! I taught it in a freshman English class some 40 years ago. Little Margaret's grieving over leaves falling will (with maturity) turn to her mourning over death in mankind and perhaps become a little cold out of indifference. Truly, it is her own mortality for which she is grieving. However, she need not grieve if she will get acquainted with the Creator of Goldengrove and Who is the "resurrection snd the life!" Jesus said, "I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:25) May we all turn to Him and find the joy of life eternal! -
Margaret, are you grieving
From guest Gloria Heaven (contact)
When I taught English in junior high school, my seventh grade classes really caught on to this poem. It is a timeless poem that moves me every time. -
How can you sum up a poem like this in 3 lines.. You can't..
It's about a man talking to(or around) a little girl who is crying because the leaves are falling from the trees as late autumn is present. She cares abouthte leaves as much as "the things of man" (mankind). He tells her that age will alter her innocence. A lot of leaves will fall and you won't feel sad, because as you grow older you will see that the world is full of death. Even though she can't articulate what she is feeling now. She is actually morning her own mortality. -
This is greatm I love the rhyme in this. This is great I love it. The story is great about the passing of time. This is a classic.
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