What heart heard of, ghost guessed

Poems for Fall

Spring and Fall

Gerard Manley Hopkins

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

(thanks to poetry foundation website)

Joy's that Sting

CS Lewis

"Oh doe not die," says Donne, "for I shall hate 
All women so." How false this sentence rings. 
Women? But in a life made desolate 
It is the joys once shared that have the stings. 

To take the old walks alone, or not at all, 
To order one pint where I ordered two, 
To think of, and then not make, the small 
Time-honoured joke (senseless to all but you); 

To laugh (oh, one'll laugh), to talk upon 
Themes that we talked upon when you were there, 
To make some poor pretence of going on, 
Be kind to one's old friends, and seem to care, 

While no one (O God) through the years will say 
The simplest, common word in just your way.

(thanks to conquering poet/blogspot)