This week I’ve chosen something by my favorite poet. I vividly regret the fact that he burned his earlier poems.
The Woodlark
| Teevo cheevo cheevio chee: O where, what can that be? Weedio-weedio: there again! So tiny a trickle of song-strain; And all round not to be found For brier, bough, furrow, or green ground Before or behind or far or at hand Either left either right Anywhere in the sunlight. Well, after all! Ah but hark — ‘I am the little woodlark. The skylark is my cousin and he Is known to men more than me Round a ring, around a ring And while I sail (must listen) I sing To-day the sky is two and two With white strokes and strains of the blue. The blue wheat-acre is underneath And the braided ear breaks out of the sheath, The ear in milk, lush the sash, And crush-silk poppies aflash, The blood-gush blade-gash Flame-rash rudred Bud shelling or broad-shed Tatter-tassel-tangled and dingle-a-dangled Dandy-hung dainty head. And down … the furrow dry Sunspurge and oxeye And laced-leaved lovely Foam-tuft fumitory. I am so very, O so very glad That I do think there is not to be had [Anywhere, any more joy to be in. Cheevio:] when the cry within Says Go on then I go on Till the longing is less and the good gone But down drop, if it says Stop, To the all-a-leaf of the treetop And after that off the bough [Hover-float to the hedge brow.] Through the velvety wind V-winged [Where the shaked shadow is sun’s-eyed-ringed] To the nest’s nook I balance and buoy With a sweet joy of a sweet joy, Sweet, of a sweet, of a sweet joy Of a sweet — a sweet — a sweet — sweet — joy. Gerard Manley Hopkins |
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