Wednesday 29 June 2011

gerald manley hopkins

Inversnaid

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

4 comments:

Marion McCready said...

"This darksome burn, horseback brown". love Hopkins!

swiss said...

i couldn't not put this one in. it's so over the top it's just lovely!

Danish dog said...

Ah, yes, this is revealing, Marion and Morgan! Now who was it that loved GMH so much? GMB of course!

This is the only poem I know by heart apart from my own (and the odd pop song). I sing it too to a melody I composed specially. Remind me to sing it for you when we meet next time.

Duncan

swiss said...

i'd like to hear that!