Binsey Poplars by Gerard Manley Hopkins
b'Manley Hopkins read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\n\\nGiving voice to classic poetry.\\n\\n---------------------------------------------------\\n\\nBinsey Poplars \\nfelled 1879 \\n\\nby Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 \\u2013 1889)\\n \\n \\n \\n My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled, \\n Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun, \\n All felled, felled, are all felled; \\n Of a fresh and following folded rank \\n Not spared, not one \\n That dandled a sandalled \\n Shadow that swam or sank \\nOn meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank. \\n \\n O if we but knew what we do \\n When we delve or hew\\u2014 \\n Hack and rack the growing green! \\n Since country is so tender \\n To touch, her being s\\xf3 slender, \\n That, like this sleek and seeing ball \\n But a prick will make no eye at all, \\n Where we, even where we mean \\n To mend her we end her, \\n When we hew or delve: \\nAfter-comers cannot guess the beauty been. \\n Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve \\n Strokes of havoc \\xfanselve \\n The sweet especial scene, \\n Rural scene, a rural scene, \\n Sweet especial rural scene.'