Gerard Manley Hopkins — Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins Now First Published Chap. 19

_19 Binsey Poplars felled 1879_ 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.