O Let Me Tell You, Comments

This is a classic poem that laments the changes in the world starkly visible in one person's lifetime. And I mean classic in the sense of poetry written in the nineteenth century which could still remember the pastoral tradition of poetry even as that landscape was destroyed to make room for urban and industrial growth and sprawl. I like the way you highlight certain natural things to measure the loss - owls, nightingales, oak trees, and (surprisingly) ghosts. This poem reminds me of Matthew Arnold's SCHOLAR GYPSY, a beautiful lament from the same deep heart-felt source as your poem. Both poems speak in measured tones of the loss of landscape and the wounding of the soul of things.

So sad that our natural environment is being replaced with concrete. Well said Emmanuel, and well written.

language telling, good writing, thanks.