A Short Analysis of Hopkins’s ‘Binsey Poplars’ In March of 1879, Gerard Manley Hopkins was working as a parish priest’s assistant in Oxford, England. It was familiar territory for him, having studied Greek and Latin at Oxford from 1862-1867. In wandering north of the city, he came to the little village of Binsey, with which he had long been familiar. There he found, to his horror, that the long line of tall trees he was accustomed to seeing along the River Thames was gone; all had been cut down. He was so moved by this that he wrote the poem ‘Binsey Poplars’. Binsey Poplars 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 ten...