Saturday, March 1, 2008

Let us welcome spring with a little sprung rhythm

We read this poem last year in English, and I found it immediately enchanting, in a melancholy way. I put in the diacritics (accent marks) as they were where I read it (yes, the poet included them himself), though I'm not sure they're completely correct, 'cause the first Margaret has two and the second "Margaret" none...but anyhoo, you stress the accented syllables to help get the sprung rhythm correctly, though it's supposed to fit in the natural accents of speech, or mimic them at least. And please, please read it aloud to yourself; that's half the magic.


Spring and Fall
to a young child

Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás 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:
Sórrow's spríngs áre 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

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