Skip to content
Linespedia

Spring

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Topics: classic

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.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Nothing is so beautiful as spring - ..."

Gerard Manley Hopkins's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "Spring"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Attribution & Rights

Author:Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Nothing is so beautiful as spring - ..." by Gerard Manley Hopkins

For usage rights, copyright concerns, or to report an issue with this content, please visit our Copyright & Report page.

Related lines

"Wild air, world-mothering air,     Nestling me everywhere,     That each eyelash or hair     Girdles; goes home betwixt     The fleeciest, fra"

"I Wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.     What hours, O what black hors we have spent     This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways yo"

"On ear and ear two noises too old to end     Trench - right, the tide that ramps against the shore;     With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or"

"Glory be to God for dappled things -     For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;     For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim:"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Gerard Manley Hopkins

About Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) was an English Jesuit poet who invented "sprung rhythm," a new metrical system. His poems—including "The Windhover," "Pied Beauty," and "God's Grandeur"—were published posthumously and are now celebrated for their ecstatic language and innovative prosody.

Full Bibliography
Continue Reading

"Wild air, world-mothering air,     Nestling me eve..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.