(Spring -- Gerard Manley Hopkins)
Nothing is so beautiful as string --
Just ask a cat for whom a dangled thread
So twitchingly entices overhead
Like heaven drooping down low orbiting;
Or bakers who vouchsafe their pies inside
Flimsy cardboard boxes whose loose flaps
Would open up and crumb-bombard our laps
Were it not for the string with which they're tied.
Wound in balls, knotted, looped or tangled,
Strapped to kites or keeping rolled things rolled,
It wants for edges yet it's many-angled;
And now -- to think!-- all matter is controlled
And made from tiny strings that are so small
That they themselves may not exist at all!
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