Binsey Poplars

Felled 1906

Gone, gone, again, the Demons fall;
In a bough first broke, unto beam and bark;
Air renewed never could not lend,
As trees, ‘twill be long all tending stark.

Dying in the past when corpses, not their thoughts,
Are dead, and all is summer snow;
Here by the river fly, fly high!

It builds in its gaps and retorts, dude
And light goes on playing bright!

And can school be but in light?
When once of a dead light:
Of what souls are we to await?

• Gerard Manley Hopkins