18 February 2009

Midweek Poetry Fix


Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring--
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.


What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.-- Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worth the winning.

Gerard Manley Hopkins



No comments: