We have a late spring in Maine, so daffodils and tulips are blooming now. Gardeners (like me) are longing to plant as the soil warms.
Here is a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), an English poet and Jesuit priest who wrote
poetry not like anyone else’s. His “sprung rhythm” is very unusual for a Victorian poet. Hopkins uses language in creative ways, too.
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 worthy the winning.
freshmoonpie 