Spring

I have been too busy to blog the past few days, having spent most of yesterday in rehearsals for a choir concert last night (with another concert to play for tonight). In addition, I have taken on a new editing project--more on that to come--and my awesome literature class (one of my favorite 90-minute blocks of the week) is coming this morning! So in the tradition of writers through the ages when time or inspiration is lacking, I commend to you the words of another. The aforementioned literature class dug into this poem a few weeks ago and found much to love as well as some etymological hidden treasure. If you like the poem as much as we did, feel free to leave your thoughts. And if you have a little time to spend, look up the word "cloy" and see what you can find. In a day or two I'll post our class discovery in the comments.

Spring - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Nothing is so beautiful as spring --
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. -- Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.