Inversnaid
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frownin,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew,
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
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Hello Friends,
Apologies for my neglect to honor the Earth with a poem-a-day yesterday.
Gerard Manley Hopkins would very much appreciate your taking the
time to hear "Inversaid" read aloud, and to read it aloud to a friend.
For "Long live the weeds," see also Louise Glück's "Witchgrass."
April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out
my own selection of one poem per day for the duration of the month. To
learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more
official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.
Enjoy.
Ellen
Labels: Earth Day, NPM