| Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903. | | | | Spring and Fall | | By Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) |
| | To a Young Child
MARGARET, are you grieving | |
| Over Golden grove unleaving? | |
| Leaves like the things of man you | |
| With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? | |
| Ah, as the heart grows older | 5 |
| It will come to such sights colder | |
| By and by, nor spare a sigh | |
| Though world of wanhood leafmeal lie; 1 | |
| And yet you will weep and know why. | |
| Now no matter, child, the name: | 10 |
| Sorrow’s springs are the same. | |
| Nor mouth had, no, nor mind expressed | |
| What heart heard of ghost guessed: | |
| It is the blight man was born for, | |
| It is Margaret you mourn for. | 15 |
| | | Note 1. Line 8.—An earlier and plainer reading is, “Though forests low and leafmeal lie.” [back] | | |
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