XLeptodactylous

"Graceful growth of Etzkoltzias or however those unhappy flowers are spelt."

19th Century poetry and journal entries from Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Victorian priest with the most beautiful grasp on language I have ever encountered. The poetry should be read aloud as it is delivered quickly, with onomatopoeia and alliteration giving it an almost ethereal quality. God features heavily, but above all else Hopkins' devotation to nature shines through.

The journal entries are poetry in prose form, feeling surrounded with exactly what Hopkins is seeing through his words alone. His sheer delight in nature and his dismay at its destruction is both breathtakingly beautiful and heart-numbingly saddening.

"April 8. The ash tree growing in the corner of the garden was felled. It was lopped first: I heard the sound and looking out and seeing it maimed there came at that moment a great pang and I wished to die and not to see the inscapes of the world destroyed any more"