Full Lyrics
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 windwandering weedwinding 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 so 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:
Aftercomers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
rural scene, a rural scene,
sweet especial rural scene.
