(Felled 1879)
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 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.
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wonderful
A beautiful and lyrical piece of poetry! -
I'm doing this poem in school, and it's certainly not one of my favourite poems. Or at least, before we started analysing it I felt that way. Now that I'm doing proper research on it I will admit to a differance in feeling.
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aspens only live about 150 years and then have to be cut down, what the poem doesnt say is that new trees were planted almost immediately after and those will be ready for falling within the next few years as well
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It is a typo Myron thanks for mentioning it. It is make
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moving
"But a prick will made no eye at all,"
What does this line mean? is there perhaps a typo in it, or am i too thick to msake sense of it?
I love the flow of the language in this poem...the energy of the grief is palpable... & "after-comers" i love that too...i wonder if it was in common usage at the time or did Hopkins invent it?
very moving & still (sadly) so apt... -
awesome
yes i agree we should all read this a couple of times and remember as well, great work, please check out some of my work, ive been writing since i was thirteen and this is the first ive let it out in the open, and id like some honesty, my favorites are as cute as can be, dreams, well i really like little big secrets, but i would like to write a sequal to it and let kids know there is a way out of hell and they are not alone in the darkness, its just someone needs to help them open their eyes. please let me know -
awesome
yes i agree we should all read this a couple of times and remember as well, great work -
Well I promoted this with the hope that people would read it a few dozen times and comment and discuss. Still assume it's possible. A note on this poem:
Yes the subject matter and expression of anguish at a paradise not lost but destroyed is amazing. However, I think poets of all interests can learn from the genius of the writing here (and in other Hopkins poems, if you like this check out
Felix Randall http://www.oldpoetry.com/poetry/771
I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark not Day http://www.oldpoetry.com/poetry/22124
As Kingfishers Catch Fire http://www.oldpoetry.com/poetry/758
Carrion Comfort http://www.oldpoetry.com/poetry/12947
etc.) The words, the words, for anyone who has sat in a grove of aspen trees in fall, could there possibly be any more excited and vibrant description of the experience than:
airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
It simply boggles the mind with originality and the ability of the words' rhythm to excavate memory of the experience through sound.
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There is so much anguish in this poem, trees are such good friends I can understand and feel the anguish, the familiar the known the loved removed just like that not one spared , there is a lot of feeling and anguish and passion in this write.
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if only everyone would have read this again and again as kids then maybe the amount of deforestation that the world has been subjected to would not have happened, Nothing changes does it this says 1879 and no doubt they were being felled before that too and trees are still being felled and will continue to be felled, the world becomes sparser in beauty, the food chain has so many broken links, the delicate balance of nature is continuously destroyed, When will Man learn what is important and what needs so badly to be preserved. Not just beauty, but life itself and the world to be preserved for future generations. Not a sick world full of pollution and holes in the ozone layer and global warming and full of toxic hazards but a beautiful healthy earth celebrating nature in all its gloriously live beauty.
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This is a little different than the version that I have of this poem- three stanzas instead of two but essentially the same words. I love all of Hopkins' poems, this is one that has always rung in my mind though. Will never forget the first reading of it, so much passion at the loss of these trees. Structurally it is perfect. The ending is this lament of mayhem destroying the pastoral. It is prophetic and personal.
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