Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Summer and Spring and Fall: Recent Silences, and a Poem

Been quiet 'round here this summer.  No particular reason: all my thoughts have either been briefer than blog length, or longer (i.e. the real work I'm actually working on this summer).  Or at least all the thoughts I've taken the time and energy to write down.

But hey, I can still post poetry.  Here's one of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets (previously featured on Attempts here, here and here), which I've never posted before.  Enjoy.  And I'll be back soon.  Or perhaps in the fall.

Spring and Fall
to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás 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 wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

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