Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie

Winter's here, but there's time for one final autumn poem before the last leaves fall. This is Hopkins: “Spring and Fall - To a Young Child.” It's deep and dense, as Hopkins is wont to be. It gets at the guts of autumn - that it's about being mortal, that, in life and in leaf, it's the shadow of spring.

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        

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:        

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.