Commentary on Binsey Poplars

Elsewhere, Hopkins shows similar sensitivity to the fragility of nature in the face of man, particularly in the poems Ribblesdale and Inversnaid. When he wrote Ribblesdale, he mentioned the Bible verses of Romans 8:19-20 to a friend. He could have added verses 19-22:

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subject to frustration, not by its own choice....we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.' (Romans 8:19-22 TNIV)

These same verses could be applied to Binsey Poplars. Nature shares in humanity's Fall. We might see Hopkins as a proto-ecologist.

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