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.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (Oxford, marzo 1879)

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