Please note that the Radio4All website will be moving over to new server hardware on July 27th starting at noon Pacific/3PM Eastern. The work should last two to three hours. During that time, the server will be offline.
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Your support is essential if the service is to continue, there are bandwidth bills to pay every month and failing disk drives to replace. Volunteers do the work, but disk drives and bandwidth are not free. We encourage you to contribute financially, even a dollar helps. Click here to donate.Welcome to the new Radio4all website! If you cannot log in, you may need to reset your password. Email here if you need additional support.
The Jesuit priest/poet Gerard Manley Hopkins is remembered for his exquisite use of language and the depth of his poetic regard. Binsley Poplars was written in 1879 in response to his shocking discovery that a favourite stand of aspen trees which he had long enjoyed during his days at Oxford had fallen to the axe. At another level, the poem is a lament for the destruction of the natural world without thought for the beauties that it holds and without regard for the blighting of the landscape itself and of our minds when we behold such devastation.
Hopkins is acutely aware of the irreversibility of such assaults upon the natural world, and laments the loss to future generations of the mystic entrancement evoked by scenes of natural beauty.
Though written over 130 years ago, Binsley Poplars is presciently anthemic of the present day Green movement and of environmentalism more generally.