Gerard Manley Hopkins[1], G.K. Chesterton[2] and John Bradburne[3]. Spring and Fall to a young child Margaret, are you grieving Over

Gerard Manley Hopkins[1], G.K. Chesterton[2] and John Bradburne[3]. Spring and Fall 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 and 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. – Hopkins, 1880 A Little Litany When God turned back eternity and was young, Ancient of Days, grown little for your mirth (As under the low arch the land is bright) Peered through you, gate of heaven—and saw the earth. Or shutting out his shining skies awhile Built you about him for a house of gold To see in pictured walls his storied world Return upon him as a tale is told. Or found his mirror there; the only glass That would not break with that unbearable light Till in a corner of the high dark house God looked on God, as ghosts meet in the night. Star of his morning; that unfallen star In that strange starry overturn of space When earth and sky changed places for an hour And heaven looked upwards in a human face. Or young on your strong knees and lifted up Wisdom cried out, whose voice is in the street, And more than twilight of twiformed cherubim Made of his throne indeed a mercy-seat. Or risen from play at your pale raiment's hem God, grown adventurous from all time's repose, Or your tall body climbed the ivory tower And kissed upon your mouth the mystic rose. – Chesterton Love Love is a short disease, a long desire, A strong and lasting healing; love is like An angler landing fish, a hand at lyre, A roadhog flogging home his motor-bike; Love is a deep unsleeping thing, leaps time And steeps amidst eternity for rest And love is like three candles lighting rhyme And metre I am making for the best; An Alleluiatic sequence shows A little of love's eloquence that lasts; Love has three lights, one to another glows, A third proceeds between: naught overcasts True love because it knows that it possesses, Being possessed, a zest above distresses. – Bradburne, 1971 There are a couple of rare recordings of John Bradburne reciting his own poetry[4]. Much of his work was completely unknown until after his death in 1979 – he wrote about 6,000 poems. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton [3] http://www.johnbradburnepoems.com/ http://www.johnbradburnepoems.com/ [4] http://vimeo.com/michaelbradleyjr/love http://vimeo.com/michaelbradleyjr/love [&] http://vimeo.com/michaelbradleyjr/mombe http://vimeo.com/michaelbradleyjr/mombe