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

Not spared, not

That swam or

On meadow and river and wind-wanderingweed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we

When we delve or hew-Hack and rack the growing green!

Since country is so

To touch, her being so slender,

That, like this sleek and seeing

But a prick will make no eye at all,

Where we, even where we

To mend her we end her,

When we hew or delve:

After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

Ten or twelve, only ten or

Strokes of havoc

The sweet especial scene,

Rural scene, a rural scene,

Sweet especial rural scene.