[Skip Navigation]

Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Ash-Boughs

Gerard Manley Hopkins

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
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
        Heaven whom she childs us by.

(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.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins | 1918
Add Keyword Tags

Separate each tag with a space. You may add as many tags as you'd like to each poem.

What are tags?
Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

More Info

This site will work and look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any Internet device.