In a famous poem by Hopkins, a child called Margaret is rebuked for grieving over the fall of leaves. Leaves fall; stuff happens; we get over it; or, to stay with Hopkins's idiom, the heart 'will come to such sights colder/By and by'. The child will one day find better reasons for her tears, including the fate of humankind, falling and falling again since its first lapse in Eden: 'You will weep and know why.' And in any case there will always have been a secret reason for her grief. Early and late she will have been crying for herself: 'It is Margaret you mourn for.'

LRB 23 February 2006 | PDF Download