Poem: Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins
There are some poems that I like just for the rhythm of the words - I can get carried off by them into the beat. As well as being one of those, this poem is about a Scottish burn that runs down into Loch Lomond (I have actually been to the location and seen it) so it makes me all nostalgic.
It is also the poem I analysed for my university-qualifying exams in English at school - we weren't allowed source texts in the exam hall, so we had to memorise every quote that we might want to use (I used to have about 2/3 of Romeo and Juliet off by heart because of this, though in totally random order). Inversnaid is a great poem for memorising because it has a beat to it and it rhymes, not to mention the descriptive language used fills up an essay rather nicely (I got an A, in case you were wondering).
Inversnaid
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew,
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
-- Gerard Manley Hopkins
In fact, I still have this off by heart - I typed that out without looking at the source and the only things I got wrong were a couple of hyphens where there shouldn't be and a comma instead of a semi-colon!
It is also the poem I analysed for my university-qualifying exams in English at school - we weren't allowed source texts in the exam hall, so we had to memorise every quote that we might want to use (I used to have about 2/3 of Romeo and Juliet off by heart because of this, though in totally random order). Inversnaid is a great poem for memorising because it has a beat to it and it rhymes, not to mention the descriptive language used fills up an essay rather nicely (I got an A, in case you were wondering).
Inversnaid
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew,
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
-- Gerard Manley Hopkins
In fact, I still have this off by heart - I typed that out without looking at the source and the only things I got wrong were a couple of hyphens where there shouldn't be and a comma instead of a semi-colon!