Quote #41

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.

More from Gerard Manley Hopkins

  1. 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…
  2. When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but That piecemeal peace is poo…
  3. Ask of her, the mighty mother: Her reply puts this other Question: What is Spring?- Growth in everything.
  4. Felix Randal the farrier, O he is dead then? my duty all ended, Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome Pining, pin…
  5. Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales, All the air things wear that build this world of Wales.
  6. Poor Felix Randal; How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years, When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst pee…
  7. Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving?
  8. I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes, Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour.

All Gerard Manley Hopkins quotes