Spring and Fall -- a Poetry Friday post

[kellyrfineman]

As I noted the other day, it's well and truly autumn here. I know, of course, that "nothing gold can stay", and that the leaves are dying; yet they are so lovely just before they go.

It put me in mind of this passage from Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility:

'And how does dear, dear Norland look?' cried Marianne

Comments

[liz_scanlon]

I love a good dead leaf.
Leaves are really what I miss about fall, even while loving everything that is bright and crisp down here...

[kellyrfineman]

Don't you get a bit of change of seasons up there in the hills?

Poetry Friday

[anonymous]

Thanks for this fabulous background on the poem. And Jane Austen, too! What a great way to start the day.
Jennifer Knoblock, Ink for Lit

Re: Poetry Friday

[kellyrfineman]

:)

TadMack says: :)

[anonymous]

Love this one -- had to read it aloud several times because sprung rhythm always trips me -- I see the rhymed words and want to make the whole thing go into sort of an iambic sing-song. As always, Hopkins pushes for a bit more than that. This is lovely, and I like the word leafmeal very much, it's very apt.

Re: TadMack says: :)

[kellyrfineman]

That whole phrase, "wanwood leafmeal" gets me. Very Anglo-Saxony, in my opinion.

[lizjonesbooks]

Good choices. I love this time of year, too. And when the brightness of the leaves is diminished, then you close your eyes and inhale.
The smell is the richest pleasure of late fall woods.

[kellyrfineman]

Unless, of course, it's been too wet and everything's gone to mold.

[cloudscome]

I just love Austen's wit! That last line in your quote slays me.

The Hopkins poem is one I particularly remember from college as one that really struck me. I remember the prof. explaining his take on the mortality references and how that was a lightbulb moment for me. Hopkins beatufiul language is a gift I always treasure.

[kellyrfineman]

I'm with your professor in preferring the mortality references. But knowing Hopkins's strong faith, I think that the interpretation about it having to do with the sorrow of the human condition after the "fall" of man is probably more what he was going for.