Binsey Poplars

"Binsey Poplars" is a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), written in 1879.^[1][2] The poem was inspired by the felling of a row of poplar trees near the village of Binsey, northwest of Oxford, England, and overlooking Port Meadow on the bank of the River Thames.^[3] The replacements for these trees, running from Binsey north to Godstow, lasted until 2004, when replanting began again.^[4]

The Bodleian Library of Oxford University holds a draft manuscript of the poem, handwritten by Hopkins, acquired in 2013.^[5]

The text of the poem is as follows:^[6][7]

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
    Of a fresh and following folded rank
            Not spared, not one
            That dandled a sandalled
            Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
 
O if we but knew what we do
            When we delve or hew—
    Hack and rack the growing green!
            Since country is so tender
    To touch, her being so slender,
    That, like this sleek and seeing ball
    But a prick will make no eye at all,
            Where we, even where we mean
            To mend her we end her,
            When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
    Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
            Strokes of havoc unselve
            The sweet especial scene,
            Rural scene, a rural scene,
            Sweet especial rural scene.

• Poplar Walk, Christ Church Meadow

• Analysis of 'Binsey Poplars' by Gerard Hopkins on YouTube
• Binsey Poplars — Gerard Manley Hopkins on YouTube