Letters to the Editor
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Oy Voy
I used to be a bit of a punkie - dinner jacket full of pins, thinned out, snarling. It was a fantastic shield. I kept wondering against what, and then found out one amid fields of flowers. I came across this in Bruce Wagner's latest novel, and think it apt. Always so loved GMH.
To a young child
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
--Gerard Manley Hopkins