Binsey Poplars

 felled 1879


 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 só 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 únselve
 The sweet especial scene,
 Rural scene, a rural scene,
 Sweet especial rural scene.

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