A hundred trees stood tall
Above the city streets
Until one night they fell
Like soldiers lost to war
Once Britain’s Ocean City
Stood firm against the waves
Sent forth brave souls to fight
For England, green and pleasant
Its nature under threat
Its people standing firm
As one against a rising tide
A hundred trees stood tall
A hundred trees stood tall
Above the city streets
Until one night they fell
Because the city council
Like cowards, all at sea
Defaced their Ocean City
In secret, in the dark
Sent forth men with chainsaws
Piled high the carcasses
To rot like men in power
Without the strength to lead
A hundred trees may fall
But we will make them matter
A hundred trees may fall
But we will stand for them
Until our leaders see
Our England, green and pleasant
It’s nature under threat
It’s people standing firm
As one against a rising tide
Ed: 140 years ago the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was inspired to write this poem about the Binsey Poplars near Oxford. Plus ça change …
Binsey Poplars
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 & river & 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 tender
To touch, her being só 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:
After-comers 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.
