"O if we but knew what we do / When we delve or hew"

Here are three poems mourning fallen trees by three different English poets -- William Cowper (1731-1800), John Clare (1793-1864), and Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89).

To me, the rise in concern over the environment provides an example of how poetry will come in and out of fashion depending on whether it speaks to our concerns. John Clare is a prime example -- throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, natural description wasn't what people considered "poetry." Instead, poetry depended on the imagination and the singular genius. But then, when the environmental movement takes hold, all of a sudden, John Clare says something that speaks to us. I wouldn't say that poetry is timeless, because a single poem or poet will never speak to all people at all times, but it's nice how a certain poet will come back into vogue depending on the concerns of a generation or two. All of a sudden, we have beautiful, exquisite poetry that we can use as protest poetry! Yay!

The Poplar Field -- William Cowper
 
The poplars are fell'd! farewell to the shade     
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;     
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,     
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.     
 
Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew;     
And now in the grass behold they are laid,     
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade!     
 
The blackbird has fled to another retreat     
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,
And the scene where his melody charm'd me before     
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.     
 
My fugitive years are all hasting away,     
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,     
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.     
 
The change both my heart and my fancy employs,     
I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys;     
Short-lived as we are, yet our pleasures, we see,     
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.

The Fallen Elm -- John Clare

Old elm, that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made--
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root--
How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
Thy strength without--while all within was mute.
It seasoned comfort to our hearts' desire,
We felt thy kind protection like a friend
And edged our chairs up closer to the fire,
Enjoying comfort that was never penned.
Old favourite tree, thou'st seen time's changes lower,
Though change till now did never injure thee;
For time beheld thee as her sacred dower
And nature claimed thee her domestic tree.
Storms came and shook thee many a weary hour,
Yet stedfast to thy home thy roots have been;
Summers of thirst parched round thy homely bower
Till earth grew iron--still thy leaves were green.
The children sought thee in thy summer shade
And made their playhouse rings of stick and stone;
The mavis sang and felt himself alone
While in thy leaves his early nest was made.
And I did feel his happiness mine own,
Nought heeding that our friendship was betrayed,
Friend not inanimate--though stocks and stones
There are, and many formed of flesh and bones.
Thou owned a language by which hearts are stirred
Deeper than by a feeling clothed in word,
And speakest now what's known of every tongue,
Language of pity and the force of wrong.
What cant assumes, what hypocrites will dare,
Speaks home to truth and shows it what they are.
I see a picture which thy fate displays
And learn a lesson from thy destiny;
Self-interest saw thee stand in freedom's ways--
So thy old shadow must a tyrant be.
Tnou'st heard the knave, abusing those in power,
Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the free;
Thou'st sheltered hypocrites in many a shower,
That when in power would never shelter thee.
Thou'st heard the knave supply his canting powers
With wrong's illusions when he wanted friends;
That bawled for shelter when he lived in showers
And when clouds vanished made thy shade amends--
With axe at root he felled thee to the ground
And barked of freedom--O I hate the sound
Time hears its visions speak,--and age sublime
Hath made thee a disciple unto time.
--It grows the cant term of enslaving tools
To wrong another by the name of right;
Thus came enclosure--ruin was its guide,
But freedom's cottage soon was thrust aside
And workhouse prisons raised upon the site.
Een nature's dwellings far away from men,
The common heath, became the spoiler's prey;
The rabbit had not where to make his den
And labour's only cow was drove away.
No matter--wrong was right and right was wrong,
And freedom's bawl was sanction to the song.
--Such was thy ruin, music-making elm;
The right of freedom was to injure thine:
As thou wert served, so would they overwhelm
In freedom's name the little that is mine.
And there are knaves that brawl for better laws
And cant of tyranny in stronger power
Who glut their vile unsatiated maws
And freedom's birthright from the weak devour.

 Binsey Poplars -- Gerard Manley Hopkins
    felled 1879
 
  MY aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,   
  Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,   
  All felled, felled, are all felled;   
    Of a fresh and following folded rank   
            Not spared, not one
            That dandled a sandalled   
        Shadow that swam or sank   
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.   
 
  O if we but knew what we do   
        When we delve or hew—   
    Hack and rack the growing green!   
        Since country is so tender   
    To touch, her being só slender,   
    That, like this sleek and seeing ball   
    But a prick will make no eye at all,
    Where we, even where we mean   
            To mend her we end her,   
        When we hew or delve:   
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.   
  Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
    Strokes of havoc únselve   
        The sweet especial scene,   
    Rural scene, a rural scene,   
    Sweet especial rural scene.