Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter.

12. The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 5
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 10
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

7 comments:

  1. This is my favorite poem in the whole wide world. I sometimes have it memorized. And I come to your blog enough that I should be able to do so again.

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  2. Yes, awe and wonder. The music of it. Dazzle con brio. A perfect Easter greeting. I hope yours was wonderful.

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  3. One of my favorite, favorite poem. Thank you, Lisa.

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  4. Gerard!

    I will admit that "dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon" will suddenly pass my lips at the odd moment. Hopkins had a great sense of the sounds that poetry can elicit.

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  5. I love the way his estopped, clotted-then-quickening-yet-singing syntax plus all that sound equals his kind of worship, praise, and (of course) agony. He and Frost were my first loves of poetry.

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  6. Hopkins, Frost, and Heaney are three of my faves.

    Frost was my first love. I came to Hopkins and Heaney later.

    Good post.

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  7. You wouldn't necessarily know this, but way back in the day, Anna Tueller and I used to memorize this and other poems on long drives in the car. This was one of my very favorites, always. Hopkins made love to words. Gash gold vermillion.

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