Monday, April 7, 2014

Maple Fingers

Here we are today. The stubby fingers of our maple reach to touch the sky. It looks a bit different from yesterday's photo. Below a few lines from Gerard Manley Hopkins on the topic of spring. My journey, as an English major, crossed paths with Hopkins in a Victorian Literature class. Our professor was a 'Hopkins' nut', who did his best to showcase the English poet's daring creativeness.

Spring
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
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. 

14 comments:

  1. As it happens, I have a bird sitting outside the window of my kitchen right now whose song "strikes like lightnings" at this still early hour. ;-)

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  2. You have a beautiful "mature" (my preference instead of that nasty word "old") tree. It looks great in both seasons. Fine poem, even for an economics major like me.

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  3. 'does so rinse and ring the ear'. i like that.

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  4. I've been listening to the "ringing" of the birds congregated at my feeder ever since I got up this morning.

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  5. Nice poem. Soon that tree will be covered in green and then maybe you'll leaf it alone! :)

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  6. This tangle of tree trunks does look appealing to the eye!

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  7. "that blue is all in a rush": spring doesn't waste a minute around here. Once it starts it seems supercharged to get ready for summer.

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  8. Yes, that blue really is in a rush.

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  9. Hopkins was a Jesuit priest, you know. Everyone has a flaw.

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  10. Hopkins. . . a master of language. Bob's "humorous" comment did not strike me as too funny. You know, of course, that April is National Poetry month—love it!

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  11. We're back in Maine. Spring, as you note, is about to boing! boing! boing! The whole earth is vibrating underfoot . . .

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