Reading in the Dark
Jonathan Galassi on Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “Spring”
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.
In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, we asked poets to write about the poems they return to in difficult times—to find solace, perspective, or even a moment of delight. Subscribe to the PSA newsletter for more Reading In The Dark responses and to keep updated with the PSA.
Someone sent a message the other day that quoted David Hockney saying, "They can't cancel spring." Spring this year is all the more beautiful for feeling out of reach, though the pear trees on the New York streets and the magnolias and crab apples and azaleas have been tremendous, and little grape hyacinths and narcissi and tulips have been showing off—early, I'd say—not to mention the hellebores and cherries that came before, and the hawthorns and hydrangeas and roses and so much more still to come. So let's especially this year revel with Hopkins in spring's low heavens as we're able to experience them: reminders of the original Eden, of recurrence and renewal and forgiveness in spite of sour sinning: of health somewhere ahead beyond trouble and testing, and how worthy the winning.
—Jonathan Galassi
Jonathan Galassi is the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux and the author of several collections of poetry, as well as acclaimed translations of the Italian poets Eugenio Montale and Giacomo Leopardi.
