Supremacy and Survival: The English Reformation: Hopkins' "Binsey Poplars" Manuscript

Supremacy and Survival: The English Reformation: Hopkins' "Binsey Poplars" Manuscript
Excerpt:
Binsey Poplars' was written in response to the felling of trees running alongside the Thames in Binsey, a village on the west side of the city of Oxford. Hopkins had been an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, and was a curate at St Aloysius Church in the city at the time he wrote the poem. The trees were replanted after the poem was first published in 1918 (the poem seems to anticipate the ravages of the Great War), and there was an outcry when they were felled again in 2004. The poem formed part of the successful campaign to replant the trees. The poem has a very particular local meaning but speaks to a much broader audience in its plaintive evocation of spiritual desolation through the destruction of nature.

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 dandled a sandalled
Shadow 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 só 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 únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

sono io

sono io (--never io sono)                 

                                A wreck of whale bones..      ~Elizabeth Bishop   

                       "You'll sometimes find that one or two
                        Are all you really need
                        To let the wind come whistling through -
                        But HERE there'll be a lot to do!"
                         I faintly gasped "Indeed!       ~Lewis Carroll, Phantasmagoria

 

How many lemons do you need? He said.
Three, no four.  I said.  The size of these!
Two, then, will do.
We’ll talk now of Emily. . . 
(...what is it you feel? I can’t feel that.”) 
We are lucky to have Alice with us, too
Bees buzzing near— ripping paper bread
Three, no four.  I said.  The heft of these!
Two, then, will do.

We’ll talk now of Federico... 
(The bell-rope that gathers God at dawn 
Dispatches me as though I dropped down the knell...) 
We are lucky to have Roberto with us, too
Black and brown bag sacks falling behind
Three, no four. I said.  The drag of these!
Two, then, will do.

We’ll talk now of Elizabeth.  .. . 
(...where Threadneedle-street abuts upon Bishopsgate...) 
We are lucky to have Deborah...or did...too
World maps, compasses, flagging banners
Three, no four, I said.  The whirr of these!
Two, then, will do.

We’ll talk now of Vladimir..  ...  .. 
(“…spoke of the vagaries of photographic portraiture, as he sees them..) 
 We are lucky to have Pierre with us, as well
Frayed cuffs and frangible residue of ashes
Three, no four, I said.  The tone of these!
Two, then, will do.

We’ll talk now of Elliot... 
("Memory is a wilful dog. It won't be summoned or dismissed but it cannot survive without you.")  
We are lucky to have Mészöly with us, as well
Three, no four, I said.  The trapping of these!
Two, then, will do.

We’ll talk now of  Elie... 
(“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw flame.”) 
We are lucky to have Radnóti with us, as well 
Where all the ladders begin knee deep in mire
Three, no four, I said.    The fire of these!
Two, then, will do.    

We’ll talk now of John... 
(`Not this, nor that, nor that, but faith’...) 
We are lucky to have Gerard with us, as well
Biting desert Socorros and little brass bells
three, no four, I said.  The wild plumb of these!
Two, then, will do.   ~4/20/13