A Side Dish of Poetry to Go with Your Turkey Leg
On this sweet day of thanks, I chase my feast with a bitter digestif from Gerard Manley Hopkins. I hope the drawings make it go down a little easier. WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PETER MOORE
In 1880, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child.” It was one of the first poems I ever memorized. It captures this autumn in all of its glory, and gloom.
Hopkins wrote:
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s spríngs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
I've always loved that poem, chilling though the last lines be. Hope you and yours had a happy Thanksgiving! Our CSU student is awaiting her return flight to CO as I write, post happy Thanksgiving. XO to you guys!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!