Gerard Manley Hopkins(1844–1889)
Spring and Fall
To a YoungChild
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal2 lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost 0 guessed:spirit, soul
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
1893