| Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918. |
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| 56. (Ash-boughs) |
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a.
NOT of all my eyes see, wandering on the world, | |
| Is anything a milk to the mind so, so sighs deep | |
| Poetry to it, as a tree whose boughs break in the sky. | |
| Say it is ashboughs: whether on a December day and furled | |
| Fast ór they in clammyish lashtender combs creep | 5 |
| Apart wide and new-nestle at heaven most high. | |
| They touch heaven, tabour on it; how their talons sweep | |
| The smouldering enormous winter welkin! May | |
| Mells blue and snowwhite through them, a fringe and fray | |
| Of greenery: it is old earth’s groping towards the steep | 10 |
| Heaven whom she childs us by. | |
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(Variant from line 7.) b.
They touch, they tabour on it, hover on it[; here, there hurled], | |
| With talons sweep | |
| The smouldering enormous winter welkin. [Eye, | |
| But more cheer is when] May | 15 |
| Mells blue with snowwhite through their fringe and fray | |
| Of greenery and old earth gropes for, grasps at steep | |
| Heaven with it whom she childs things by. | |
| | | See Notes. |
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