Gerald M. Hopkins was working as a priest’s assistant in Oxford, England. On the 13th March 1879, he was moving around the north of the city, he came to the little village of Binsey. He was shocked to find that a row of aspen trees or a long line of tall trees along the River Thames had been felled. ‘’All felled, felled, are all felled.’’ He condemned the deliberate action of cutting down of some valuable tress in the village of Binsey. He compared the line of trees to a rank of soldiers. ‘’Of a fresh and following folded rank.’’ In the second stanza, there was an exclamation of sorrow, horror and sadness. ‘’O if we but knew what we do, ’’when we delve or hew’’. This means that nature is fragile and any damage done to it will make nature to lose its beauty. Any attempt to interfere with nature is an act of irreversible destruction. ‘’Where we, even where we mean’’, ‘’To mend her we end her, ‘’when we hew or delve.’’ The unborn generations will not have knowledge of beauty of the countryside before humans thoughtlessly destroy it. ‘’Only ten or twelve,’’ ‘’strokes of havoc unselve.’’