Apparently I am often in a Hopkins mood in October. This poem always makes me feel sad and hopeful at the same time.As a Christian, I know that my mortality is not ultimately something to mourn, though there will be mourning along the way. There is always mourning along the way.
But my mortality, while the cause of tears, is also the cause of my joy.
Spring and Fall
to a young child
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.
The Poetry Friday roundup today is at Big A little a.
5 comments:
Oh my gosh, you're the THIRD person who posted this gem today!! How cool is that?
The fall of man and the fall of leaves and the turning of the weather... mortality and melancholy. It's in the air. As is hope...
Take care!
Yes, amazing to see this poem 3 times today. But it's no wonder; it's exceptionally perfect.
Janet @ acrossthepage.net
It's a Hopkins kind of day. I'm glad that poetry connects us all.
Thank you, Karen. This poem has been dancing around in the back of my head and I keep meaning to look it up. But my Hopkins book is somewhere in one of the thirty boxes of books.
So perfect for this crisp October day.
Third time's a charm!
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