Wednesday Words - Spring

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.        


"Spring" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, from Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985).