Sabbath Poem-Spring by Hopkins

Here is the Sabbath Poem we read last Sunday on our drive to church. It was so fitting as everything is becoming "long and lovely and lush." This is our first Spring in Pennsylvania and it simply amazes us.

There were several times during the week that lines of the poem came back to me.
I often asked myself when outside in our garden, on a nature walk, jogging through the neighborhood, on a trip to Longwood Gardens with my mom and sister-in-law: "What is this juice and all this joy?"

It is the end of my husband's first year teaching at a new university, the baby is now 7 months old, we are feeling more settled after our move and so I feel the weight of it all being "rins[ed] and wring[ed]" away! My fear, though, is much like Hopkins. All is so sweet and beautiful, will it "cloud," will it "sour"?

Well, wishing you a blessed Lord's Day. On this Sunday in Spring, as Hopkins, "have, get" a glimpse of Eden and thus, be filled with the hope of heaven.


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.


For a further basic analysis of the poem.