April 01st, 2018

Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring--
  When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
  Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
  The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
  The descending blue:  that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
  A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden . . . 

Someone I read recently wrote that as he grows older, he turns more and more to poetry.  I agree.  And someone told me recently that that person doesn't understand poetry.  It's an old and frequent complaint.  Hopkins can be particularly difficult.  But if you read the poem aloud—more than once, especially--it's beauty  and what he's saying becomes clearer, I find.  Happy Easter, Passover, SPRING! (the happiest season as far as I am concerned).