I should be leaving for aqua, but...

I was reminded (by coughingbear, thank you) of a 19th c. poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I always forget how much I like many different sorts of poetry, even when I write some doggerel myself. I wrote a piece of doggerel for M. last night, mixing math and love. I liked it. However, THIS is poetry:

'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 and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.


-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

You have to read that aloud ... "though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie"... "over Goldengrove unleaving..." The sounds of English are so wonderful in the mouth. French, too, but very differently. English scores in the consonants.

PS. I love Wikipedia; I know there are detractors, but I don't care. It's awesome. The entry on Hopkins is excellent. Sprung rhythm. That is just an excellent description, and he does with language things I very much love. This is one of those things where I have an inchoate idea of what I hear and read and like, and then I read something where it's all brilliantly dissected, and agrees with me. Good times. I sort of miss English literature and analysis and linguistics. Bah.