Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

This is movement 2 of my Hopkins set. (You can hear the 1st movement here.)It is a setting of Hopkins' poem, "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child". In the text, the poet contemplates a young child weeping over the Autumnal defoliation and, in it, he finds a metaphor for the deeper human condition. The full text is below the video.




MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older 5
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: 10
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. 15

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