Produced by Lewis Jones

Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1918) "Poems"

Poems

of

Gerard Manley Hopkins

now originally published

Edited with notes

by

Poet Laureate

Transcriber's notes: The poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins use unconventional English, accents, and horizontal lines. Facsimile images of the poems as they were originally published are freely available online from the Internet Archive. Please use these images to check for any errors or issues in this electronic text.

The editor's endnotes refer to the page numbers of the Author's Preface and to the first page of the Early Poems. I've added these page numbers in round brackets: (1), (2), etc. up to (7). For pages 1 to 7, the line numbers in this electronic version match those mentioned in the editor's endnotes.

After page 7, this text primarily follows the editor's endnotes, which, besides the occasional page reference, refer to the poems by their numbers. For example:

In poem 26, I kept the extra spacing between the first and second words of the eighth line.

In poem 36, I've changed the first word of line 28 to "Óne." In the original, the emphasis is on the second letter, but I didn't have a text character to record that correctly.

The editor's notes include one word and then a phrase from ancient Greek; these are kept, but the Greek letters have been transformed into English.

Author's Preface
Early Poems
Poems 1876-1889
Unfinished Poems & Fragments

Preface to Notes
Notes

OUR generation has already passed,
And your cherished legacy, Gerard, has quietly
Stayed in my home; just as your heart once wanted
A place to stay, when God's fear had you trapped
In life's wild woods, shocked by Beauty and Sorrow;
Your sacred insight ensnared in haunting pain,
Your unique, poorly managed talent rejected:
Yet love for Christ will ultimately win man’s love.

Hell battles outside; but, my dear, while my hands
Picked up your book, I heard, on this wintry day,
Your spirit thanking me, in its youthful joy,
Stepping once more onto the golden sands.
Go ahead: among our chaffinch flock, show off
Your feathers of distant wonder and heavenly flight!

Chilswell, Jan 1918.

THE poems in this book* (*That is, the MS. described in the Editor's preface as B. This preface does not apply to the early poems.) are written partly in Running Rhythm, the typical rhythm used in English, partly in Sprung Rhythm, and partly in a mix of the two. Among those in the common rhythm, some are counterpointed, and some are not.

Common English rhythm, known as Running Rhythm above, is measured by feet of either two or three syllables. (Setting aside the imperfect feet at the beginning and end of lines, as well as some unusual measures where feet seem to be paired together, leading to the creation of double or composite feet), there are never more or less.

Every foot has one main stress or accent, and this stress or the syllable it falls on can be called the Stress of the foot, while the other part, the one or two unaccented syllables, is referred to as the Slack. Feet (and the rhythms made from them) where the stress comes first are called Falling Feet and Falling Rhythms, while feet and rhythms where the slack comes first are called Rising Feet and Rhythms. If the stress is between two slacks, then we have Rocking Feet and Rhythms. These distinctions are real and true to nature; however, for scanning purposes, it’s much easier to follow the (2) example of music and take the stress first, as the accent or the main accent always comes first in a musical bar. If this approach is taken, there will only be two possible feet in common English verse—the so-called accentual Trochee and Dactyl—and correspondingly, only two possible uniform rhythms, the so-called Trochaic and Dactylic. But they can be mixed, leading to what the Greeks called a Logaoedic Rhythm. These are the facts, and based on these, scanning ordinary regularly-written English verse is very straightforward, making the introduction of other principles unnecessary here.

But because poetry strictly following these patterns and principles can become monotonous, poets have introduced variations and deviations from the rules to add interest, especially when the natural rhythm is building up, like in the common ten-syllable or five-foot verse, whether rhymed or unrhymed. These irregularities mainly consist of Reversed Feet and Reversed or Counterpoint Rhythm, which are two degrees of license within the same style. By a reversed foot, I mean placing the stress where, judging by the rest of the measure, the weak spot should be and the weak spot where the stress should be. This is often done at the beginning of a line and, within a line, after a pause; it rarely happens in the second foot and never in the last unless the poet aims for some special effect because these positions are significant and sensitive and shouldn't be easily altered. However, reversing the first foot and some middle foot after a strong pause is so natural that our poets have typically done it, from Chaucer onward, without comment, and it usually goes unnoticed. It can't be seen as a formal rhythm change but more as that irregularity found in all natural growth and motion. If the reversal occurs in two consecutive feet, especially affecting the sensitive second foot, it must result either from a significant lack of musicality or be an intentional effect, introducing a new rhythm over the old one; since the new rhythm is heard while our minds simultaneously fill in the traditional rhythm we expect to hear, two rhythms are effectively playing at once, akin to musical counterpoint, where two or more melodies are performed together, and this is what we call Counterpoint Rhythm. Milton is the master of this type of verse, and the choruses of Samson Agonistes are entirely written in it—but the downside is that he doesn't clearly indicate what the base rhythm is supposed to be, leading most readers to view it as merely irregular. In fact, if counterpoint is applied throughout, since only one of the counter rhythms is actually perceived, the other is effectively negated or fails to manifest, resulting in a single rhythm, likely in Sprung Rhythm, which I will now discuss.

Sprung Rhythm, as described in this book, is measured by feet containing one to four syllables, consistently, and for specific effects, any number of weak or extra syllables can be included. It has one stress that falls on the only syllable if there's just one, or, if there are more, then scanning as mentioned, on the first one, leading to four types of feet: a monosyllable and the so-called accentual Trochee, Dactyl, and the First Paeon. There will also be four corresponding natural rhythms; however, the feet are mixed, and any one can follow another. Therefore, Sprung Rhythm differs from Running Rhythm by having only one nominal rhythm, a mixed or 'logaoedic' one, instead of three, but on the other hand, it has twice the flexibility in foot structure, meaning that any two stresses can follow each other directly or be separated by one, two, or three weak syllables. However, strict Sprung Rhythm cannot be counterpointed. In Sprung Rhythm, as is common in logaoedic rhythm, the feet are considered to be equally long or strong, and their apparent inequality is compensated for by pauses or stresses.

Remark also that it is natural in Sprung Rhythm for the lines to be rove over, meaning the scanning of each line immediately continues from the one before. So, if the first line has one or more syllables at its end, the next must have that many fewer at its beginning. In fact, the scanning flows continuously from the start, for instance, of a stanza to its end, making the whole stanza one long flow, even though it's written in separate lines.

Two licenses are natural to Sprung Rhythm. One is rests, like in music; however, a clear example of this is hardly found in this book, except in the Echos, (5) second line. The other is hangers or outrides, which are one, two, or three extra syllables added to a foot that don’t count in the regular scanning. They’re called that because they seem to hang below the line or ride forward or backward from it, existing in a different dimension than the line itself, based on a principle that doesn’t need explaining here. These outriding half-feet or hangers are marked with a loop underneath them, and you’ll find plenty of them.

The other marks are easy to understand, like accents, which indicate which syllable should be stressed; slurs, which are loops over syllables that connect them into a single time frame; small loops at the end of a line to show that the rhyme continues to the first letter of the next line; what are called pauses in music, indicating that the syllable should be emphasized; and twirls, used to indicate reversed or counterpoint rhythms.

Note on the nature and history of Sprung Rhythm— Sprung Rhythm is the most natural thing. For (1) it reflects the rhythm of everyday speech and written prose when we notice the rhythm in them. (2) It resembles the rhythm of almost all music that isn’t boringly regular, so it appears in the words of choruses, refrains, and songs closely tied to music. (3) You can find it in nursery rhymes, sayings about the weather, and so on; even though these may have originally been created in a flowing rhythm, the endings have faded away due to changes in the language, causing the stresses to come together and forming the sprung rhythm. (4) It also appears in common (6) verse when it’s reversed or paired in a counterpoint style, for the same reason.

But still, despite all this, although we know Greek and Latin lyric verse, as well as the old English verse found in Pierce Ploughman, are in sprung rhythm, it has actually not been used since the Elizabethan age, with Greene being the last writer who truly acknowledged it. Until our time, there hasn’t been a single short poem in English that utilizes sprung rhythm as the main principle of scansion, rather than for specific effects or in set places. I mention this because some have claimed otherwise: if that's the case, the poem should be referenced.

Some of the sonnets in this book* (*See previous note.) are written in five-foot lines, while others use six-foot or Alexandrine lines.

Nos. 13 and 22 are Curtal-Sonnets, meaning they are built in proportions similar to a traditional sonnet, specifically 6 + 4 instead of 8 + 6, but with a half-line tailpiece (so that the equation is more like 12/8 + 9/2 = 21/2 + 10 1/2).

Early Poems

1
For a picture of
St. Dorothea

I carry a basket lined with grass;
I’m so light, I’m so lovely,
That people must marvel as I go by
And at the basket I carry,
Where in fresh green bedding
I transport sweet flowers—treats for the bitter.

Lilies I show you, no lilies,
None bloom in Caesar's gardens,—
And a quince in hand,—not one
Is hanging from your branches below;
Not hanging, because their buds won't bloom;
Bloom not, because the world is in winter.

But these were found in the East and South
Where winter is the season forgotten.—
The dewdrop on the larkspur's mouth
O should it then not be quenched?
In starry water-meadows they gathered
These drops: are they stars or dew?

Had she a quince in hand? Yet look:
It's more like the glowing moon.
Wow, the heavens are linked with milky ways!
That was her larkspur row.—So soon?
Sphered so fast, sweet soul?—We see
Neither fruit, nor flowers, nor Dorothy.

2
Heaven—Haven
A nun wears the veil

I’ve wanted to go
     To places where springs never run dry,
To fields where sharp, angled hail doesn’t fly
   And a few lilies bloom.

And I have asked to be
     Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the quiet harbors,
   And away from the motion of the sea.

The Perfection Habit

ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my curled ear,
Play me to quiet pastures and be
The music I want to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be beautifully silent:
It's the closure, the curfew sent
From where all surrender comes
That makes you truly expressive.

Be blinded, eyes, with double darkness
And discover the uncreated light:
This chaos and spin that you notice
Wraps, holds, and taunts plain vision.

Palate, the home of delicious cravings,
Longing not to be washed away with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that it brings in divine feasts!

Nostrils, your careless breath that spills
Upon the stir and maintain of pride,
What scent will the incense send
Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the softness of grassy ground,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.

And, Poverty, you shall be the bride
And now the wedding feast has started,
And provide clothes white as lilies
For your partner, not worked on or woven.

4 THE WRECK OF THE DEUTSCHLAND

To the
happy memory of five Franciscan Nuns
exiled by the Falk Laws
drowned between midnight and morning on
Dec. 7th. 1875

1
               You mastering me
          God! giver of breath and sustenance;
     World's shore, pull of the sea;
          Lord of the living and the dead;
   You have connected bones and veins in me, fastened me with flesh,
   And after almost unmaking it, filled with dread,
     Your doing: and do you touch me again?
Once more I feel your finger and find you.

2
I did say yes
O at lightning and lash of the rod;
You heard me truer than words can admit
Your terror, O Christ, O God;
You know the walls, altar, hour, and night:
The fainting of a heart that the sweep and force of you pressed
Hard down with a fear of height:
And the midriff straining from the pressure, laced with fire of stress.

3
               The frown on his face
          In front of me, the rush of hell
     Behind, where, where was, where was a place?
          I spread out wings that cast a spell
   And took off with a leap of the heart to the heart of the Host.
   My heart, but you had dove-like wings, I can see,
     Quick-witted, I'm bold enough to claim,
To leap from the flame to the flame then, rising from the grace
     to the grace.

4
I am fine-grained
In an hourglass—against the wall
Quick, but shifting with a movement, a flow,
And it gathers and it smooths to the end;
I am steady like water in a well, poised, clear,
But always connected, all the way down from the high
Slopes or sides of the mountain, a thread
Of the gospel offered, a force, a truth, Christ's gift.

5
I kiss my hand
To the stars, beautiful and distant
Starlight, lifting him up and away; and
Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled purple west:
Because, even though he is beneath the world's splendor and wonder,
His mystery must be emphasized, highlighted;
For I greet him on the days I see him, and I bless him when I understand.

6
Not out of his happiness
Springs the pressure felt
Nor first from heaven (and few realize this)
Swings the blow dealt—
A blow and a pressure that stars and storms bring,
That guilt quiets, hearts are warmed, and melt—
But it flows through time like riding a river
(And here the faithful hesitate, the unbelievers make up stories and miss),

7
It goes back to the day
Of his arrival in Galilee;
Warm, prepared grave of a life just begun;
Manger, a maiden's embrace;
The intense and overwhelming Passion, and terrible sweat;
From there the release of it, there its growth to come,
Though sensed before, though still at high tide—
What no one would have realized, only the heart, backed into a corner,

8
Is out with it! Oh,
We lash with the best or worst
Word last! How a well-tended, soft-capped sloe
Will, pressed to flesh-burst,
Gush!—flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet,
Brim, in a flash, full!—So then, last or first,
To the hero of Calvary, Christ’s feet—
Never ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it—men go.

9
Be loved by people,
God, in your triple form;
Confront your defiant, stubborn foe in his lair,
Man's wickedness, with destruction and chaos.
Beyond sweet words, beyond what can be expressed,
You are lightning and love, I've discovered, both cold and warm;
Father and nurturer of the heart, you have squeezed it tight:
Are you dark and descending, yet most merciful then?

10
               With the sound of the anvil
          And with fire in him, shape your will
     Or rather, instead, like Spring
          Flow through him, melt him, but keep control:
   Whether all at once, like the dramatic Paul,
   Or like Austin, a slow and sweet skill,
     Bring mercy into all of us, out of us all
Mastery, but be worshiped, but be worshiped King.

11
'Some see me as a sword; some
The edge and the track; fire,
Bite, or flood' goes Death on drum,
And storms announce his fame.
But we dream we are grounded in earth—Dust!
Flesh falls within our view, as we, though our flower is the same,
Sway with the meadow, forgetting that there must
The harsh scythe bend, and the dull blade arrive.

12
On Saturday, we left Bremen,
heading to America,
taking settlers and sailors, and men with women,
Two hundred people in total—
Oh Father, not under your wings nor ever guessing
That the destination was a shallow spot, leading to doom of drowning;
Yet did the dark side of the bay of your blessing
Not prevent them, the countless rounds of your mercy not catching
even them in?

13
               She sweeps into the snow,
          Leaving safety behind,
     The Deutschland, on Sunday; and the sky holds,
          For the endless air is harsh,
   And the sea, like sharp flint, black-backed in the steady blow,
   Sitting East Northeast, in a cursed direction, the wind;
     Wiry and white-hot, swirling snow
Spins down into the depths that take away children and fathers.

14
               She drove in the dark, away from the wind,
          She hit—not a reef or a rock
     But the tops of a thick patch of sand: the night pulled her
          Straight into the Kentish Knock;
   And she crashed against the bank with her front and the bottom of
     her hull:
   The waves slammed against her side with a devastating force;
     And sails and compass, the swirl and the wheel
Were forever useless to steer her or change her course, these she endured.

15
               Hope had gone grey,
          Hope was in mourning,
     Marked by tears, etched with worries,
          Hope was twelve hours lost;
   And a terrifying nightfall closed in on a sorrowful day
   With no rescue, only flares and beacons shining,
     And lives were finally slipping away:
They clung to the rigging,—they trembled in the wild and
     horrible winds.

16
One came down from the rigging to save
The wild women below,
With a rope ready in hand—brave and quick—
He was thrown to his death in an instant,
Despite his strong chest and tough muscles:
They could talk for hours, rocking back and forth
Through the choppy foam, but what could he do
With the force of the air and the crashing waves?

17
They battled against God's chill—
And they couldn’t hold on and fell onto the deck
(Crushed by it) or into the water (and drowned) or tossed
With the sea's rough play over the wreck.
Night roared, filled with the heartbreak of a grieving crowd,
The woman’s cries, the uncontrollable wails of children—
Until a lioness stood up against the noise,
A prophetess rose in the chaos, a pure voice spoke out.

18
               Ah, you’re touched in your beautiful hiding place
          Aren't you! feeling an exquisite sting,
     Have you! making words spill out of me here all alone,
          Do you!—mother of life in me, my heart.
   Oh, unteachably after wrongdoing, but speaking truth,
   Why, tears! Is that it? Tears; such a melting, a song beginning!
     Never-aging celebration and stream of youth,
What can it be, this joy? the good you have there all for yourself?

19
Sister, a sister calling
A master, her master and mine!—
And the churning seas are swirling and shouting;
The reckless, stinging waves
Blind her; but she that endures knows one thing, one;
Has one pull in her: she lifts herself to hear
The voice of the tall nun
To the men in the rigging as the storm rages.

20
She was the oldest of five and came
From a well-groomed sisterhood.
(Oh Germany, what a desperate name!
Oh world full of its goodness!
But Gertrude, a lily, and Luther, are both from the same town,
Christ's lily and the beast of the wild:
From the beginning of life it is pulled down,
Abel is Cain's brother, and they've both nursed from the same breast.)

21
               Hated for a love that men recognized in themselves,
          Rejected by the land where they were born,
     Rhine turned them away. Thames would destroy them;
          Waves, snow, river, and earth
   Clashed: but you are above, you Orion of light;
   Your uplifting, steady hands were weighing their worth,
     You martyr-master: in your sight
Storm flakes were like scrolls of flowers, showers of lilies—sweet
     heaven was scattered among them.

22
Five! the discovery and purpose
And symbol of Christ's suffering.
Look, the mark is man-made
And its meaning is Sacrificed.
But he inscribes it in scarlet himself on his own chosen,
Previously taken, most valued and treasured—
Stigma, signal, five-pointed emblem
For marking the lamb's fleece, reddening of the rose-flake.

23
Joy be with you, Father Francis,
Drawn to the life that ended;
With the marks of the nails in you, the spot of the lance, his
Love story crucified
And the sign of his angelic arrival! And these your daughters
And five-lived and leafed favor and pride,
Are bonded in wild waters,
To soak in his fallen-gold mercies, to breathe in his all-fire glances.

24
               Out in the charming west,
          On a scenic hillside in Wales,
     I was sheltered here, I was at peace,
          While they were at the mercy of the winds;
   She called to the darkening sky, to the crashing waves, to the heavy
   Falling snowflakes, to the crowd that panics and falters,
     Saying, 'O Christ, Christ, please come soon':
She calls the cross to her, invoking Christ to her, blessing her weary soul.

25
The majesty! What did she mean?
Breathe, arch and original Breath.
Is it love inside her like what her lover had been?
Breathe, body of lovely Death.
They were thinking differently then, all together; the men
Woke you with a we are perishing in the weather of Gennesareth.
Or is it that she cried for the crown then,
The more eager to find comfort from feeling the sharp struggle?

26
               For how the heart’s joy
          The sad, low ground is left behind
     As the bright blue sky shows up
          In colorful May!
   With blue shades and shining heights; or night, even higher,
   With ringing stars and the soft Milky Way,
     What do you think is the heaven of desire,
The treasure that you can’t see, nor has anyone ever figured out what it’s for
     the hearing?

27
No, but it wasn't these.
The roughness and noise of the cart,
Time’s work, it’s fathers that are asking for a break
From the heart weighed down with sadness,
Not danger, shock, or terror; instead, it finds
That the pull of Passion is gentler in quiet prayer:
Other, I take in the weight of her thoughts
In the strong winds and pounding of turbulent seas.

28
               But how can I ... make room for myself there;
          Get me a ... Imagination, hurry up—
     Does it catch your eye? Look at it standing there,
          The thing that she … there then! The Master,
   Ipse, the only one, Christ, King, Head:
   He was supposed to heal the situation where he had thrown her;
     Go on, take charge, rule over the living and the dead;
Let him ride, her pride, in his victory, get it over with
     and finish his fate there.

29
               Ah! there was a true heart!
          There was a focused vision!
     Experience the unimaginable shock of night
          And understand the who and the why;
   How else to express it but through him who connects present and past,
   Heaven and earth are spoken by, who speaks?—
     The Simon Peter of a soul! anchored against the storm
Tarpeian-fast, yet a shining beacon of light.

30
Jesus, light of my heart,
Jesus, son of a maiden,
What was the celebration that followed the night
You had glory from this nun?
Feast of the one woman without sin.
For just as she conceived, so to conceive you is done;
But here was heartache, birth of a thought,
Word, that heard and held you and spoke you clearly.

31
Well, she has you to deal with the pain, for the
Patience; but what about the others?
Heart, go and bleed in an even deeper way for the
Comfortless ones who can’t speak up—
No, not without comfort: beautiful and kind Providence
The touch of someone gentle, oh how delicate, the heart of the
Maiden could respond like this, be a signal to, ring out, and
Startle the poor sheep back! Is the shipwreck then a harvest; does
The storm bring the grain for you?

32
I admire you, master of the tides,
Of the ancient flood, of the fall of the year;
The ebb and flow of the shorelines,
The width of it, the pier of it, and the barrier;
Stopping, soothing ocean of a restless mind;
Foundation of existence, and solid as granite: beyond all
Grasp God, seated behind
Death with a power that notices but conceals, forebodes but remains;

33
With a mercy that surpasses
All the water, a refuge
For the one who listens; for the one who lingers with love
Lower than death and darkness;
A pathway for the visiting of past prayers, locked in confinement,
The last breath of penitent spirits—the ultimate point
Our passion-drenched giant has risen,
The compassionate Christ of the Father, brought through the storm of
His steps.

34
               Now burn, newborn to the world,
          Doubled-natured name,
     The heaven-sent, heart-felt, lady-wrapped
          Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,
   Mid-numbered He in three of the thunder-throne!
   Not a doomsday dazzle in his coming nor dark as he arrived;
     Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;
A released shower, let flash to the shire, not a lightning of fire
     hard-thrown.

35
               Lady, at our doorstep
          Drowned, and among our shallows,
     Remember us on the roads, the haven of the
                    Reward:
          Our King back, oh, upon English souls!
   Let him rise within us, be a dawn to our darkness,
     be a crimson-tipped east,
   Brightening her, cherished Britain, as his reign unfolds,
     Pride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest,
Our hearts' warmth, our thoughts' gallantry's
     Lord.

5 Penmaen Pool

For the Visitors' Book at the Inn

WHO long for rest, who seek enjoyment
Away from the hustle of work, court, or school
Oh, where can you truly enjoy your free time
But right here, right here at Penmaen Pool?

You'll take on the Alps? you'll speed across the water?—
Each sport has its gear and equipment here:
Come, set the pole by Cadair cliff;
Come, row the oars on Penmaen Pool.

What's over there?—Grizzled Dyphwys is dim:
The triple-humped Giant's stool,
Old friend, sharing drinks with him
To split the bowl of Penmaen Pool.

And all the landscape being observed,
At peaceful bends, following nature's way,
Rides upside down again and again
In the open, in the magical Penmaen Pool.

And Charles's Wain, the amazing seven,
And clouds like flocks of sheep, all fluffy and white.
Even though they shine so brightly, high in the sky,
They look even better when reflected in Penmaen Pool.

The Mawddach, how she dances! though choked
If flood tide bursts with energy,
And tangled sands all waterlogged
Block her path at low tide, past Penmaen Pool.

But what's there to see in stormy weather,
When gray showers gather and the winds are cool?—
Well, raindrop circles looped together
That lace the surface of Penmaen Pool.

Then even in the tiredest winter hour
Of January or gloomy Yule
Thick layers of snow, piled high and high, tower
From the shadowy Penmaen Pool.

And always, if you're stuck here at home,
You've left behind the fun in the living room and (who wouldn’t
Appreciate it?) beer like golden foam
That covers an oar in Penmaen Pool.

Then come those who long for peace or pleasure
Away from the hustle of work, court, or school,
Spend your time and resources here
And enjoy the delights of Penmaen Pool.

6
The Silver Jubilee:
To James, First Bishop of Shrewsbury, on the 25th Year
of his Episcopate, July 28, 1876

1
EVEN WITHOUT loud bells or the noise
Of boastful trumpets sounding off—
   What is sound? Nature's harmony
Celebrates the Silver Jubilee.

2
Twenty-five years have passed
Since sacred fountains to the sun
  Sprang, that are now closed,
Celebrating the Silver Jubilee.

3
Feasts, when we will fall asleep,
Shrewsbury might see others celebrate;
None but you know her true,
This her Silver Jubilee.

4
Not today we need to mourn
Your life's riches are somewhat gone:
Toil has scattered around your head
Silver only for the Jubilee.

5
Then for her whose soft valleys
Should have echoed with a welcome, Wales,
   Let the sound of a rhyme
Celebrate the Silver Jubilee.

God's Grandeur

THE world is filled with the majesty of God.
   It will burst forth, like light reflecting off crumpled foil;
   It accumulates into something great, like the seep of oil
From crushed grains. So why don’t people care about His power now?
Generations have walked, have walked, have walked;
   And everything is scarred by commerce; dulled, stained with
     hard work;
   And carries man's fingerprints and shares man's scent:
     the ground
Is bare now, and a shoe cannot feel it.

And for all of this, nature never runs out;
There’s a lovely freshness deep within things;
And even though the last light fades away in the black West,
Oh, morning, rises at the brown edge in the East—
Because the Holy Spirit hovers over the bent
World with a warm embrace and with ah!
bright wings.

Starlit Night

LOOK at the stars! Look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright neighborhoods, the circular fortresses there!
Down in dark woods the diamond depths! The elf eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quicksilver lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! Airy alders set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating out at a farmyard scare!—
Ah well! It’s all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! Bid then! — What? — Prayer, patience, charity,
     promises.
Look, look: a spring mess, like on orchard branches!
   Look! March bloom, like on yellowingsickly trees!
These are indeed the barn; inside the house
The shocks. This bright fence keeps in the family
   of Christ, Christ and his mother and all his saints.

Spring 9

NOTHING is as beautiful as spring—
   When weeds shoot up in dense, long, and lush clumps;
   Thrush eggs look like tiny pieces of heaven, and the thrush
Through the echoing woods sings so powerfully
It strikes the ear like lightning to hear him sing;
   The shiny leaves and blooms of the pear tree brush
   Against the deepening blue; that blue rushes by
With richness; the frolicking lambs also enjoy their play.

What’s all this juice and joy?
A bit of the earth's sweet essence from the start
In the Garden of Eden. Enjoy it now, before it becomes overwhelming,
Before it becomes tainted, Christ, lord, and bitter with sin,
Innocent thoughts and the joy of spring in girl and boy,
Most of all, O maid's child, your choice is worth
winning.

10 The Lantern out of Doors

SOMETIMES a lantern moves through the night,
That catches our attention. And who’s there?
I wonder; where are they coming from and headed to,
With that light cutting through the dark?

Men pass by me, either with striking beauty
In form or intellect, or something else that stands out:
They shine against our heavy, foggy air
Rich beams, until death or distance takes them away.

Death or distance quickly takes them away: wind
Whatever I may focus on most, it will be gone in the end
I can't, and what I can't see is forgotten.

Christ cares: Christ's interest, what to confess or change
There, eyes watch them, heart desires, worry follows,
foot
walks kindly,
Their ransom, their rescue, and first, fast, last friend.

11 The Sea and the Skylark

ON ear and ear two sounds too old to stop
   Trench—right, the tide that crashes against the shore;
   With a flood or a fall, soft lull or all roar,
Lingering there while the moon keeps wearing on.

Left hand, off land, I hear the lark rise,
   His bold, freshly unwound new-tuned song
   In curls of sound off wild whirling, and pour
And drop music, until there’s nothing left to play or share.

How these two shame this shallow and fragile town!
How loudly our messy and troubled times ring out,
Being pure! We, life's pride and cherished crown,

Have lost that joy and appeal of nature's golden days:
Our form and formation crumble, are crumbling, down
    To man's final dust, quickly draining back to man's original muck.

The Windhover:

To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning's minion, king-
     dom of daylight's prince, dappled dawn-drawn Fal-
          con, in his flight
Over the rolling level below him, steady air, and
     striding
High up there, how he rang the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! Then off, off forth on swing,
     As a skate’s heel glides smoothly on a bow-bend:
          the hurl and gliding
     Deflected the strong wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird—the achievement of, the mastery of the
          thing!

Brutal beauty, courage, and action, oh, atmosphere, pride, feathers, here
    Strap in! AND the fire that erupts from you then, a
          billion
Times more beautiful, more dangerous, O my knight!

No surprise here: sheer hard work makes the plow dig
          deep
Shine, and blue-gray embers, oh my dear,
   Fall, hurt themselves, and cut golden-red.

13 Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for spotted things—
For skies of two colors like a brindled cow;
For rose-colored spots all over trout that swim:
Freshly fallen chestnuts; finches' wings;
Landscapes divided and arranged—fold, fallow, and
plowed;
And all trades, their tools and equipment and setup.

All things opposite, unique, extra, odd;
   Whatever is unpredictable, spotted (who knows how?)
      With fast, slow; sweet, sour; bright, dull;
He creates everything whose beauty never changes:
                  Praise him.

Celebrating in Harvest

SUMMER ends now; now, fierce in beauty, the
     stooks rise
   Around; up above, what gusts! what lovely
     movement
   Of silky clouds! has wilder, wanton waves
Meal-drift shaped ever and melted across the skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up my heart and eyes,
   Gathering all that glory in the heavens to find our
     Savior;
   And, eyes, heart, what looks, what lips have ever given you a
Rapturous love's greeting with more genuine, more complete replies?

And the blue-hued hills are his entire world,
     shoulder
   Majestic—like a strong stallion, so sweetly violet!—
These things, these things were present but the
     observer
   Yearning; which when they finally connect,
The heart spreads its wings, bolder and bolder
   And throws for him, oh, half throws the earth from
     beneath his feet.

Caged Skylark

As a daredevil skylark trapped in a boring cage
Man's soaring spirit in his body, a humble house,
resides—
That bird beyond remembering his open fields;
This in hard work, straining through life's years.

Though up high on grass or a perch or a low stage,
   Both sometimes sing the sweetest, sweetest songs,
   Yet both can also droop sadly at times in their cages
Or bang against their bars in fits of fear or anger.

Not that the songbird doesn't need rest—
Why, listen to him, listen to him chatter and settle into his nest,
   But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

Man's spirit will be stuck in the flesh at its best,
But unburdened: the meadow grass isn’t upset
   For a rainbow walking on it nor he for his bones risen.

16 In the Valley of the Elwy

I REMEMBER a house where everyone was nice
To me, God knows, they didn’t deserve it:
A comforting smell greeted me as I walked in,
Fresh, as I imagine, from some sweet wood.
That warm air wrapped around those kind people
Like a mother hen over her clutch of eggs
Or like the gentle nights that bring the new life of spring:
It felt natural; it felt like it was meant to be.

Lovely are the woods, waters, meadows, hollows, valleys,
All the beautiful things that create this world of Wales;
Only the soul within does not fit:
God, lover of souls, balancing things with care,
Complete your dear creation, O where it falls short,
Being a powerful master, being a father and loving.

_17 The Loss of the Eurydice

Founded March 24, 1878.

1
THE Eurydice—it involved you, O Lord:
Three hundred souls, oh no! on board,
     Some asleep, unaware, all un-
warned, eleven fathoms down

2
Where she failed! One blow
Knocked them down, the strong hearts!
   And the bells from the high
Hills rang out for the funeral.

3
Did she really take pride in her, fully loaded, with
Bound bales or a stash of gold?—
   A truly valuable measure,
Boys and men her cargo and treasure.

4
She had just returned from a cruise, training sailors—
Guys, daring boys about to become men:
Must it, in the worst weather,
Blast trunk and bloom together?

5
No Atlantic storm troubled her
Or towering wave of the Biscay sea:
   Home was close by
And the wind came from shore.

6
And you were a liar, oh blue March day.
Bright sun shot fire across the heavenly bay;
   But what dark Boreas destroyed her? he
Arrived charged, deadly-electric,

7
A looming, bright cloud over England
Riding: were storms not mixing? and
Hail ropes hustle and grind their
Heavenly gravel? Wolf snow, loads of it, is there wind?

8
Now Carisbrook Castle is shrouded in darkness;
Now it towers over Appledurcombe;
Now close to Ventnor town
It crashes, crashes down from Boniface Down.

9
So proud, so proud, what a burden she carried!
Royal, and all her royals dressed in style.
   Tighten the sails with her!
Too late; lost; gone with the wind.

10
This was the moment it capsized,
As she partially righted herself and hoped to recover
   Death flooding in through her portholes
Rushed down the decks, around groups of people.

11
Then there was a sudden lurch forward, the ship and its crew;
'Everyone for themselves!' was the shout that went up;
   But she who had brought them there
Was all around them, binding them or wrapping them with her.

12
Marcus Hare, her captain,
Stuck by her—overwhelmed and trapped in
   Cheer's demise, would pursue
His duty through the churning white water.

13
All beneath the channel to bury her in a beach
Cheeks: Right, rude of feature,
He thought he heard someone say
'Her commander! and you too, and you this way.'

14
It’s clear, time serves its purpose,
In the mix of humanity, it often gets sidetracked,
   When faced with a simple ‘No or yes?’
It sheds everything and pushes for what’s right.

15
Sydney Fletcher, raised in Bristol,
(Low lie his friends now on a watery bed)
   Heads out to the seas and snow
As the ship goes straight down.

16
Now her aftershock drags him down too;
Now he gasps for air with the deathly wave;
   Until a lifeline and God's will
Give him a boost from the ocean's swell.

17
Now he shoots up towards the round sky;
Now he gasps, now he looks around;
   But his eye can’t find any cliff, no shore or
Mark in the swirling snowstorm.

18
After an hour of icy waves,
A schooner spots him, along with another, and rescues him,
   And he climbs aboard with such joy
He has lost track of what happened next, poor guy.—

19
They say whoever saw a drowned sailor
He was the picture of a handsome man,
   Every bit a seaman,
Of the best that we claim our sailors are.

20
Look, head down, how everything fits! he
Is pulled by responsibility, is pushed to attractiveness,
   And tanned-skin
With salt and shine and swirling wind.

21
Oh, his quick fingers, his twisted grip!
Miles, miles of sailing skills
  Lie dormant in these abandoned
Bones, this muscle, and won’t awaken.

22
He was just one of thousands more,
Day and night I mourn
My people and my own nation,
Quickly sinking in my generation,

23
I might let the past be—the burden we bear
Of a destroyed shrine, untouched by any hand or, worse,
   A thief's hand that is eager to
Restore, ancient shrines that have never been visited;

24
Only the living temple and quick
Life, this wild worth blowing so sweet,
   These daring deaths, yeah this crew, in
Ungodly, all wrapped in ruin—

25
I really need to express my regret,
Wondering why my master put up with it,
   The tearing away of that race
Back then, he was true and gracious at home.

26
That a dreamer among us would say
The amazing Milk was Walsingham Way
And one—but let it go, let it go:
More, more than what is will still come.—

27
Oh, how well you wept, mother who has lost her son;
Wept, wife; wept, sweetheart would be one:
Though grief brings them no good
Yet shed what tears sad true love should.

28
But to Christ, lord of thunder
I kneel; my knees touch the ground below:
'Holiness, beauty, bravery,
Save my hero, O Hero, save him.

29
And the prayer you hear me making
Has, at the terrible moment,
   Heard; has heard and granted
Grace that day when grace was needed.'

30
Not that hell understands redemption,
But for souls trapped in appearances
   Fresh, until doomfire consumes all,
Prayer will bring eternal compassion.

May Magnificat

MAY is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
     Her feasts follow reason,
     Dated due to season—

Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
     Why tie that to her,
     With a celebration in her honor?

Is it just because it's brighter
Than most things that it makes her happy?
     Is it the most convenient
     And are flowers found the quickest?

Ask her, the powerful mother:
Her answer raises this other
     Question: What is Spring?—
     Growth in everything—

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and green world all together;
     Starry-eyed strawberry-breasted
     Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs, thin
Forms and warms the life inside;
     And bird and blossom grow
     In soil or sheath or shell.

All things growing, all things expanding
Mary observes, understanding
     With that world of goodness,
     Nature's nurturing.

Their amplification of each its kind
With joy brings to mind
     How she in her kept
     Magnified the Lord.

Well, there was more to it than this:
Spring's universal joy
     had a lot to share
     with our offering, Mary May.

When the drop of blood and foam splatters
Bloom brightens the orchard apple
     And the woods and village are joyful
     With cherry dressed in silver waves

And the blue sky above the graybell makes
Wooden banks and edges look wet like lakes
     And the magical cuckoo calls
     Covers, clears, and holds it all—

This joy all around mothering earth
Tells Mary her happiness until Christ’s birth
     To remember and celebrate
     In God who was her salvation.

Binsey Poplars

felled 1879

MY aspens, dear, whose airy cages calmed,
Calmed or blocked in leaves the jumping sun,
All downed, downed, are all downed;
   Of a fresh and following folded line
               Not spared, not one
               That played with a shadow
          That floated or sank
On meadow and river and breezy, wandering weed-winding
   bank.

O if we only knew what we do
When we dig or cut—
Chop and tear at the thriving green!
Since the land is so delicate
To touch, her form so slight,
That, like this smooth and shining globe
Just a prick won't make a single eye at all,
Where we, even when we intend
To fix her we end her,
When we cut or dig:
Future generations can’t imagine the beauty that was.
Ten or twelve, just ten or twelve
Strikes of destruction undo
The lovely special scene,
Countryside scene, a countryside scene,
Lovely special countryside scene.

20 Duns Scotus's Oxford

TOWERY city and sprawling between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, buzzing with bells, lark-charmed, rook-
     filled, river-surrounded;
The dapple-eared lily below you; that country and
     town did
Once meet here, balancing and opposing forces;

You have a rough and ugly skirt there, sour
That your natural beauty is connected to
Best in; awkward growth, you’ve confused
Country life—people, livestock, and flowers.

Yet ah! this air I breathe in and breathe out
He kept living; these weeds and waters, these walls are what
He lingered around, the one person who calms my mind most;

Of property, the rarest unraveler; a not
Unmatched understanding, whether rivaling Italy or Greece;
Who inspired France for Mary without a flaw.

21 Henry Purcell

The poet wishes well to the divine talent of Purcell and praises him for expressing not only the moods of the human mind like other musicians but for also capturing the very essence and nature of humanity in his notes, reflecting both himself and all people in general.

HAVE fallen so beautifully, oh beautiful, beautiful have fallen, so dear
To me, such a uniquely special spirit as flows in Henry Purcell,
It's been an age since he left, since we parted; with the turning
Of the outward sentence, he lies low, listening to a heresy,
     here.

Not a mood in him or meaning, proud passion or sacred fear,
Or love or pity or all those sweet notes he might nurture:
It is the crafted appearance that captures me; it is the practice
Of self, of sudden identity that pushes in, so crowds
     the ear.

Let him Oh! with his angelic vibe then lift me, lay me!
     only I'll
Keep an eye on his sake, those unique moonmarks, to
     his speckled feathers under
Wings: like some huge stormbird, whenever he has walked
     his while

The thunder-purple seabeach plumè purple-of-thunder,
If a gust of his feathery snow-wings spreads a
     huge smile
From him, but the meaning of the movement sparks our minds with
     wonder.

22 Peace

WHEN will you ever, Peace, wild wood dove, shy wings shut,
Your roaming around me end, and rest under my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I won't pretend
To hide my heart: I admit you do show up sometimes; but
That half-hearted peace is a poor peace. What true peace
     permits
The scares of wars, the terrifying wars, the end of it?

O surely, taking away Peace, my Lord should leave in return
Some good! And so he does leave exquisite Patience,
That leads to Peace afterward. And when Peace settles here
does stay
He comes with work to do, he does not come to whisper,
He comes to think and sit.

The Bugler's First Communion

A bugler boy from the barracks (it's over the hill
There)—a boy bugler, born, he says, to an Irish
          Mother and an English father (he
Definitely shares their best traits, no matter what happens),

This very day came to us after a blessing he granted on
My late presence there asked of me, overflowing
          Blessings in my giving,
Came, I tell you, this day to it—to a First Communion.

Here he knelt then in regimental red.
Out came Christ from the cupboard, how eager I am to take his treat to his little one!
Low-latched in leaf-light house, his too huge godhead.

There! And your sweetest messages, oh divine,
By it, heavens, may it happen to him! as a heart of Christ's beloved,
     fearless;
          A true tongue, unafraid of boasting or mocking;
Breathing the essence of purity in refined masculinity.

Frowning and protecting guardian angel
Waste the hellish ranks that come to bother him;
          March, good friend, alongside him;
Arrange his days into a skillful and starry order.

How much my heart joys to visit that dreary hill,
When flexible youthful spirit, which I teach to everyone,
          Gives way as easily as a ripe peach,
Rushes stubbornly toward its own happiness and strong-willed desire!

Then though I should walk on patches of comfort
Days later, so I in a way deserve to
And do serve God to serve to
Just such mistakes of soldiers as Christ's royal supply.

Nothing else is like it, no, not even close
Us: fresh youth worried in a bloomfall all signaling
That sweet's sweeter ending;
Realm both Christ is heir to and there reigns.

O now, what a great job with that sealing sacred ointment!
O for now charms, protection, what keeps away the bad
          And always locks love in a guy!
Let me though see no more of him, and not be disappointed

Those sweet hopes are silenced by the smallest excitement I feel.
In red or somewhere on some day seeing
          That forehead and essence of life,
Our day's God's own Galahad. Although this child's
     drift

Seems by a divine curse channeled, nor do I cry
Disaster there; but may he not fester and wander
          In the back alleys though headed home?—
That left to the Lord of the Eucharist, I lie here;

Recorded only, I have put my lips on pleas
Would shake unyielding heaven with noise and motion, if
          Prayer went unheard:
Boldly, but still, and like a supportive heaven
   listened to these.

24 Morning, Midday, and Evening Sacrifice

THE dappled fade-away
Cheek and soft lip,
The golden thread, the light gray
Eye, all together—
This, all this beauty thriving,
This, all this freshness alive,
Give thanks to God while it’s worth keeping.

Both thought and strength now bolder
And told by Nature: Tower;
Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder
That beat and breathe with power—
This pride of prime's enjoyment
Take as a tool, not a toy meant
And hold for Christ's employment.

The vault and range and knowledge
And mastery in the mind,
In silk-ash kept from cooling,
And ripest under rind—
What life barely lifts the latch of,
What hell creeps towards the grab of,
Your gift, with speed, of!

25 Andromeda

Now Time's Andromeda on this rough rock,
With neither her beauty nor her injuries
Looks out from both ends of the shore,
Her flower, her existence, doomed to be a dragon's meal.
In the past, she has been targeted and chased
By many strikes and curses; but now she hears the roar
Of a wilder beast from the West than all before, more
Filled with her wrongs, more reckless, and more immoral.

Her Perseus stays and leaves her to her limits?—
He walks through soft air for a while and rests
His thoughts on her, abandoned as she appears,
While her patience, broken into sharp pains,
Builds up; then to arrive unexpectedly, no one suspects,
With Gorgon's armor and bare bill, straps and teeth.

26 The Candle Inside

SOME candle burns clearly somewhere I pass by.
I ponder how its presence brings joy back
With warm, yellow moisture in the dim night’s black,
Or soft, gentle beams playing with the eye.
By that window, what work are those fingers doing?
I trudge on, wondering, yearning, just for lack
Of answers, the more eager I want Jessy or Jack
There—God to magnify, God to glorify.—

Come inside, come home; your dying fire
Fix the most important candle in your heart's safe place:
You are in charge here, do what you want;
What's stopping you? Are you too blind to see, yet to a fault
In a skilled neighbor? Are you that deceiver
Who’s cast out by conscience, wasting your time?

The Attractive Heart:

at a Gracious Response

'BUT tell me, kid, what do you want me to buy
You?'—'Dad, I’ll like whatever you choose for me best.'
With the sweetest tone that suggested it, he kept asking and pushing,
He leaned toward his initial intention of responding.

What the heart is! which, like carriers let go—
Shed darkness, instinctively knowing the way—
To its own beautiful purpose, wild and self-assured,
Falls light as it has learned for ten long years how and why.

Mannerly-hearted! more than a handsome face—
Beauty's presence or inspiration of rising energy,
All, in this case, surrounded by great sacred grace . . .

Of heaven, what gift can I buy you, boy, or achieve
That isn't given?—Only … O on that road you walk
Run your whole race, O toughen up that effort!

_28

At the Wedding March

GOD with honor hang your head,
Groom, and bless you, bride, your bed
With graceful kids, sweet kids,
From sacred bodies bred.

Each other's comfort, kind:
Deep, deeper than divine,
Divine love, dear love,
Hold on tight, stay intertwined.

Then let the March sound in our ears:
I turn to him with tears
Who marries, his astonishing marriage,
Deals triumph and eternal years.

29 Felix Randal

FELIX RANDAL the farrier, oh, he's gone now? my responsibility is all over,
Who have observed his build, strong and sturdy—
     attractive
Longing, longing, until the time when reason wandered in it and some
Deadly four illnesses, manifested there, all fought?

Sickness took him down. At first, he cursed in frustration, but he healed
After being blessed and everything; although a more heavenly heart had started some
Months earlier, since I offered him our sweet relief and redemption
Ah well, may God forgive him for every wrong he
     committed!

This seeing the sick makes us care for them, and it makes them care for us too.
I had taught you comfort with my words, and my touch had wiped away your tears,
Your tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;

How far from that careful planning, all your more wild years,
When you at the chaotic, dark forge, strong among your friends,
Did you craft for the great gray draft horse his shiny and heavy
     shoe!

30 Siblings

How lovely the older brother's
Life all intertwined with the younger's,
Love intertwined! What I once clearly
Witnessed; that's how fate played out.
When Shrovetide, two years ago, 5
Our boys' performances began
Part was chosen for John,
Young John: then fear, then joy
Danced wildly in the older boy.
Their night had finally come; all 10
Our friends gathered in the hall;
Henry, by the wall,
Called me over:
I went where he called, and watched him
Meanwhile; making my performance 15
Focus mostly on tender interactions.
For, all twisted up in love's game,
My guy, lost in Jack,
Smiled, blushed, and bit his lip;
Or dove, with a sudden movement, 20
Clutching hands down through crossed knees—
Truth's signals like these,
Old telltales, with what tension
He placed on the imp's success.
Now the other was bold: 25
He had no need to hold
His heart steady under the pressure;
No, mischief flowed through him.
Two long acts were behind us;
Jack's call and cue finally arrived; 30
When Henry, heartbroken,
Dropped his gaze and wouldn’t look.
Oh, how it all rumbled!
Young guy, he did speak out!
But Harry—in his hands he held 35
His tear-streaked, flushed cheeks
For loving and for shame.
Ah Nature, shaped in flaw,
There's comfort there, there's truth;
Nature, flawed, lowly, and blind, 40
You can still be kind;
There I truly, then, truly,
I'll say you can be kind.

Spring and Autumn:

to a kid

MARGARET, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove losing its leaves?
Leaves, like human things, you
Can care for with your fresh thoughts, can’t you?
Ah! As the heart gets older
It will grow accustomed to such cold sights
Eventually, without even a sigh
Though piles of withered leaves lay everywhere;
And still, you will cry and understand why.
Now it doesn’t matter, child, what you call it:
The springs of sorrow are all the same.
No one has spoken, nor has anyone’s mind expressed
What the heart felt, what the ghost sensed:
It’s the burden that humanity was meant to bear,
It’s Margaret you’re mourning.

32 Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves

EARNEST, groundless, equal, adjustable, | deep, expansive, . . amazing Evening tries to be time's vast, | source of everything, home for all, grave of all night. Her gentle yellow light twisted to the west, | her wild, empty pale light hung high Wasted; her first stars, early stars, | main stars, bend over us, fiery heaven. For earth | her existence has been released, her pattern is at an end, lost or swarming, all around, in crowds; | self in self steeped and crushed—completely Forgetting, dismembering | all now. Heart, you surround me correctly With: Our evening is above us; our night | rolls, rolls, and will consume us. Only the leaf-covered branches like dragons | decorate the smooth, bleak light; dark, So very dark on it. Our story, our prophecy! | Let life, faded, oh let life unwind From her once-skinned, stained, veined variety | upon, all on two spools; part, pen, pack Now her all in two flocks, two folds—black, white; | right, wrong; consider only, pay attention only, think But these two; aware of a world where only these | two tell, each about the other; of a place Where, self-wrung, self-strung, unprotected and shelterless, | thoughts against thoughts in groans grind.

Inversnaid

THIS dark stream, a deep brown,
His rocky high road rushing down,
In the troughs and crests, the fleece of his foam
Sings softly and low as it flows home to the lake.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Twists and twirls over the broth
Of a pool so pitch black, fell-frowning,
It circles and circles Despair to drowning.

Wet with dew, spotted with dew
Are the slopes that the brook flows through,
Tough heather, patches of fern,
And the beautiful ash tree that stands over the stream.

What would the world be like, once stripped
Of water and wildness? Let them remain,
Oh let them remain, wildness and water;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness still.

_34

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As stones tumble over the edges of round wells,
They ring; like each tucked string sings, each hanging bell's
Bow swings, finding its voice to shout out its name;
Every living thing does just one thing the same:
It expresses the essence of that which it holds;
Selves—each goes on its way; myself it expresses and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man acts with justice;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his behaviors graceful;
Acts in God's sight what he truly is in God's sight—
Christ—for Christ lives in countless places,
Beautiful in bodies, and beautiful in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of people's faces.

35 Ribblesdale

EARTH, lovely Earth, beautiful landscape, with leaves gathered
And lush, low grass, a heaven that calls out to
Us, with no voice to plead, no heart to feel;
That can only exist, but desires that so—

You can only be what you truly are; strong
Your request with him who took action, and still takes,
Your beautiful valley thus and thus makes sway
Your river, giving everything to ruin or harm.

And what else is the eye, tongue, or heart of Earth, where
else but in dear and stubborn man?—Ah, the heir
to his own self, so bound, so tied to his fate,
to foolishly strip our rich, full world bare
and no one cares about the world beyond; this brings
Earth’s face such worry, worry and deep concern.

_36 The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo

(Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well)_

How to keep—is there any way, is there no way, nowhere
     known some, bow or brooch or braid or bracelet, lace,
     or latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, . . . from disappearing
     away?

Oh, is there no way to smooth these deep, furrowed wrinkles,
No shaking off these mournful messengers, still
     sad and creeping messengers of gray?
No, there’s none, there’s none, oh no, there’s none,
Nor can you stay as you are, called beautiful,
No matter what you do, no matter what you do,
And wisdom learns early to lose hope:
So start now; since, really, nothing can be done
To fend off
Aging and its problems, gray hair,
Lines and wrinkles, sagging, dying, death's worst, winding
     sheets, tombs, and worms, crumbling into decay;
So start now, start now to lose hope.
Oh, there’s none; no, no, no, there’s none:
Start now to lose hope, to lose hope,
Lose hope, lose hope, lose hope, lose hope.

Spare!
There is one, yes I have one (Hush!);
Just not in the sunlight,
Not under the blazing strong sun,
The tall sun's glow, or the dangerous taint of the air.
Somewhere else there is a well where! one,
Óne. Yes, I can reveal such a key, I know of such a place,
Where everything we cherish and that passes from us, everything that's
     fresh and quickly fleeting from us, feels sweet and
     swiftly gone, finished, undone,
Undone, over, soon over, and yet dearly and
     dangerously sweet
Of us, the water-dimpled face, not matched by morning,
The flower of beauty, the fleece of beauty, too easily, ah! to flee,
Never flees more, tied with the tenderest truth
To its best self and its youthful beauty: it is an ever-
     lastingness of, O it is all youth!
Come then, your ways and styles and looks, your hair, maiden outfits,
     charm and cheer and grace,
Charming methods, innocent airs, maidenly manners, sweet expressions,
     flowing hair, long hair, love locks, dazzling outfits, going strong,
     girl grace—
Give them up, sign them, seal them, send them, express them
     with breath,
And with sighs soaring, high sighs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before
death
Return beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty's
     self and beauty's giver.
Look; not a hair is lost, not an eyelash, not even the tiniest lash; every hair
Is, hair of the head, counted.
No, what we lightly left in the cold ground
Will have awakened and grown and walked with the wind
     while we slept,
This side, that side tossing a heavy storm
While we, while we slumbered.
O then, tired then why should we walk? O why are we so
     weighed down in heart, so coiled in care, so exhausted,
     so troubled, so burdened,
When the thing we willingly forfeit is kept with more loving care,
More loving care kept than we could have managed, kept
Far with more loving care (and we, we would have lost it) finer, more loving
A care held. Where kept? Just tell us where it’s kept, where.—
Over there.—What, as high as that! We follow, now we follow.—
     Over there, yes over there, over there,
Over there.

37
The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we
Breathe

WILD air, world-nurturing air,
Cuddling me everywhere,
That every eyelash or hair
Embraces; finds its way
Between the softest, delicate
Snowflake; that's truly mixed
With, mysteries, and is full
In every tiny thing's life;
This essential, never-ending,
And nurturing element; 10
My more than food and drink,
My meal at every blink;
This air, which, by life's rule,
My lungs must draw and draw
Now just to breathe its praise,
Reminds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Brought God's infinity
Down to childhood
Welcomed in womb and breast, 20
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But nurtures each new grace
That now reaches our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Just a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Greater than any goddess's
Was believed, imagined; who
Has this one task to perform—
Let all God's glory flow through, 30
God's glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wrapped
With mercy all around
As if it were air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Covers the guilty world,
Since God has allowed her
Prayers to guide his will:
No, more than just a giver,
The sweet gifts themselves are her
And people are meant to share
Her life just like they breathe air.
If I’ve understood,
She holds high motherhood
For all our spiritual good
And plays her part in grace
Around man's beating heart,
Spreading, like a gentle breeze,
The dance of death in his blood;
Yet every part will still
Be Christ, our Savior still.
From her flesh he took flesh:
He takes it fresh and new,
Though it’s a mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, oh marvelous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and night;
New Bethlehems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn
Bethlehem or Nazareth,
People here may draw like breath
More of Christ and defy death;
Who, born so, becomes to be
A new self and a nobler me
In each one and each one
Creates, when all is done,
Both God's and Mary's Son.
Again, look overhead
How the sky is azure;
Oh how! Just stand where
You can lift your hand
Skyward: rich, rich it wraps
Around the four gaps of fingers.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steeped sky will not
Stain light. Yes, mark this:
It does no harm.
The glass-blue days are those
When every color glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue it is: this blue sky
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will send
Perfect, not change it.
Or if there’s a soft,
On things far away, lofty,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas if air did not create
This bath of blue and soothe
His fire, the sun would tremble,
A blurry and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars around him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz fragments, or sparks of salt,
In a dirty vast vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to shape
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our morning star
Much dearer to humanity;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would capture man's mind.
Through her, we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Filtered to fit our sight.
Be you then, you dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, where
To wander and meet no sin;
Above me, around me lie
Facing my stubborn eye
With sweet and clear sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God's love, oh living air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wrapped with you, in you isled,
Fold home, quickly fold your child.

38 To what purpose does Human Beauty serve?

What’s the point of mortal beauty, which can be dangerous? It sets our blood racing, showcasing a proud form more than a Purcell tune could lead us to dance to. Look: it does this—it keeps men's minds engaged with reality; it defines what good really means—where a single glance can convey more than a mere stare can express. Those beautiful boys, once fresh from the chaos of war, how could Gregory, a father, have gathered anything else from the bustling city of Rome? But God offered a precious chance to a nation that day. For a person who insists on worshipping something lifeless, like a block of stone, our law tells us: Love what truly deserves love, if all were known; the world’s finest—men themselves. The self shines through in body and face. So, what should we do? How do we engage with beauty? Simply acknowledge it; embrace it at heart, this sweet gift from heaven; then, let it be. Yes, wish for that, wish for everything—God's greater beauty, grace.

39 (The Soldier)

YES. Why do we all, when we see a soldier, bless him? bless
Our redcoats, our sailors? Both of these being, for the most part,
But fragile clay, in fact, but dirty clay. Here it is: the heart,
Since, proud, it calls what a man does manly, gives a hint
That hopes, that makes-believe, the men must be no less;
It imagines, pretends, values what the artist creates;
And gladly will find everything as valuable as it appears,
And wear the spirit of war boldly there expressed.

Mark Christ our King. He knows war, has served in this soldiering
through;
He can handle a rope better than anyone. There He waits in joy
Now, and seeing somewhere a man doing all that a man can do,
For love, He leans forward; His neck must fall in a kiss,
And cries, 'O Christ, what a deed! So God-made-flesh does too:
If I were to come back again,' cries Christ, 'it should be this.'

40 (Carrion Comfort)

NOT, I won't, carrion comfort, Despair, won't feast on you;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of humanity
In me or, most weary, cry I can't take it anymore. I can;
Can something, hope, wish for day to come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O you terrible, why would you be so harsh with me
Your wring-world right foot rock? lay a lion limb against
     me? scan
With dark, devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to
     avoid you and flee?

Why? So that my useless parts could be blown away; my good stuff would remain, pure and clear. No, through all that hard work and struggle, since it seems I accepted my fate, my heart, rather, embraced strength, took away joy, would laugh, cheer. Cheer who though? The hero who, with heaven’s help, threw me down, Me? Or me who tried to fight him? Oh, which one? Is it both? That night, that year Of now-finished darkness, I lay there, wrestling with (my God!) my God.

41

No worse, there really isn't. Beyond the deepest grief,
More pain will come, taught by earlier suffering, more intense.
Comforter, where is your comfort?
Mary, our mother, where is your relief?
My cries rise up endlessly; they gather like a crowd, a leader
Of sorrow, world-weariness; on an ancient anvil I wince and sing—
Then I calm down, then stop. Anger had screamed 'No delaying—
Let me be fierce: I must be quick.'

O the mind, the mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Terrifying, steep, unfathomable. Those who have never
Been there can easily dismiss them. Our short
Time doesn’t really handle that height or depth. Here! crawl,
You wretched soul, beneath a comfort that acts in a whirlwind: all
Life ends in death, and every day dies with sleep.

Tom's Wreath;

on the Unemployed_

TOM—decked out in short and grumpy steel
Tom; then Tom's hardworking buddy piles up bricks
Next to him and digs out rock fire to take home—strong Dick;
Tom Heart-at-ease, Tom Laborer: he's all about his meal
For sure, it's his bed now. Low be it: he embraces his low lot (feel
That he never needs to be hungry, Tom; Tom's rarely sick,
Even less often heartbroken; he pushes through, tough as
     thick
Thousands of thorns, thoughts) swings though. Common-
     good
I care little! If everyone had bread:
What! The country holds enough honor for all of us—noble head,
With heaven's lights high above, or mother earth
That supports, mighty feet. But no way to prosper,
Neither mind nor strength; gold gets worn as a crown
With danger, oh no; nor can it tread safely,
               Not belonging, beyond bounds
Of earth's glory, earth's comfort, all; no one, nowhere,
In the wide world's good; rare gold, bold steel, bare
               In both; caring, but sharing care—
This, bred from Despair, creates a dull Hangdog; from Rage,
Manwolf, worse; and their packs plague the times.

Harry Ploughman

HARD as tough arms, with a mix of golden vapor
Breathed around; the ribcage; the hollow side; thin
Rope-like thigh; knee; and thick leg—
          Head and foot, shoulder and leg—
With a steady grey eye guiding well, one crew, fall in;
Stand at attention. Each limb's strong muscle, his strength
That sometimes hardened, sometimes softened or sank—
               Soared or sank—,
Though as sturdy as a beech tree, finds his, just like at a roll-
      call, rank
And features, in flesh, what action he must take—
          His muscle power where to apply.

He leans toward it, Harry bends down, look. Back, elbow, and
     fluid waist
In him, all shrink back from the dirtiness of the plow:
     's cheek turns red; curls
Swinging or restrained, in a lifted wind, wind-tangled—
          See his wind-tangled locks;
Common grace, too, child of Lover's strength, how it hangs
     or throws
Them—broad and bluff hide his scowling feet tied! raced
With, along them, rough iron underneath and cold waves—
          With a fountain's shimmering waves.

44

To appear like a stranger is my fate, my life
Among strangers. My dear parents,
Brothers and sisters are not close to me in Christ
And He is my peace, my separation, sword, and conflict.
England, whose honor I deeply desire, like a wife
To my creative thoughts, would neither listen
To me, even if I were begging, nor do I: I’m tired
Of this pointless existence, but I exist where wars are common.

I’m in Ireland now; now I’m at a third
Remove. But in every situation I can
Kind love both give and receive. Only what word
Wisest my heart creates dark heaven’s confusing curse
Blocks or hell’s charm obstructs. This to keep unheard,
Heard but ignored, leaves me feeling lonely.

45

I wake up and feel the darkness, not the day.
What hours, oh what dark hours we’ve spent
This night! What sights you, my heart, saw; the paths you took!
And more must, in even longer delay of light.
I say this with a witness. But when I mention
Hours, I mean years, I mean life. And my lament
Is countless cries, cries like dead letters sent
To my dearest one who, sadly, lives far away.

I am bitterness, I am heartburn. God’s most serious judgment
Would have me taste the bitterness: my essence was me;
Bones formed within me, flesh filled, blood flooded the curse.
Self-raising spirit turns a boring dough sour. I see
The lost are like this, and their torment will be
As I am to myself, their weary selves; but worse.

46

PATIENCE, tough thing! It's hard to pray,
But that's what Patience demands! Patience who asks
Wants conflict, wants pain; tired of his times, his tasks;
To manage without, take hits, and comply.
Rare patience grows in this, and, without these,
Nowhere. Natural heart's ivy, Patience hides
Our ruins of broken past intentions. There she lounges
With purple eyes and oceans of flowing leaves all day.

We hear our hearts grind against each other: it hurts
To hurt them even more. Still, we ask God to shape
Our stubborn wills to His will.
And where is He who continually pours out
Sweet kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills
His fine creations, and that comes from the paths we understand.

47

Let me have more compassion for my own heart; let
Me live kindly to my sad self from now on,
Being charitable; not living with this tormented mind
That keeps tormenting me still.
I seek comfort, but I can’t find it
By fumbling around in my comfortless state, just like blind
Eyes can't find daylight in the dark or thirst discover
All the water in a world full of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jack, I advise you
You, exhausted, let it be; take a break from your thoughts for a bit
Somewhere else; make room for comfort; let joy grow
At some unknown time to some unknown thing; whose smile
Is genuine, you see; unexpected times instead—as skies
Between mountains—shine a beautiful mile.

48 That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection

CLOUD-PUFFBALLS, torn tufts, tossed pillows | flaunt forth, then
     chevy on an air-
built road: heaven-partyers, in lively groups | they gather;
     they sparkle in parades.
Down rough surfaces, down bright whitewash, | wherever an elm
   arches,
Shadows and light play in long | lashes that lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully, the bright wind boisterously | ropes, wrestles, beats
   the ground bare
Of yesterday’s storm's wrinkles; in puddles and ruts, it peels
Squandering ooze into squeezed | dough, crust, dust; it stanches,
   starches
Squadroned masks and footmarks | tread laboriously there
Foottracked in it. Million-fueled, | nature's bonfire burns on.
But quench her most beautiful, dearest | to her, her clearest spark
Man, how quickly his fiery spirit, | his mark on consciousness, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous darkness
Drowned. O pity and outrage! The human shape, that shone
Clearly off, separated, a star, | death blots it out in black; nor mark
          Is any of him at all so stark
But vastness blurs and time | evens out. Enough! the Resur-
     rection,
A heart's-call! Away grief's gasping, | joyless days, dejection.
          Across my sinking deck shone
A beacon, an eternal light. | Flesh fades, and mortal remnants
Fall to the consuming worm; | the world’s wildfire leaves only ash:
          In a flash, at a trumpet's blast,
I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal
     diamond,
          Is an immortal diamond.

49
In honor of
St. Alphonsus Rodriguez
Laybrother of the Society of Jesus

HONOR is displayed through deeds, we say;
And those blows that once cut flesh or dented armor
Should now speak of that time, celebrate that battlefield,
And, on the warrior, shape his glorious day.
They do it for Christ and for the martyr;
But if the battle's internal, the weapon we carry
Is hidden, the heroic heart not visibly strong,
The earth hears no clash even from the fiercest fight.

Yet God (who shapes mountains and continents,
Earth, everything, out; who, with gradual addition,
Creates violets and tall trees more and more)
Could fill life with success while there passed
Those long years of a world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.

50

Indeed, you are just, Lord, if I argue with you: however, I will speak reasonably to you: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? &c.

You are indeed just, Lord, if I argue with you; but, sir, what I'm asking for is fair. Why do the wicked succeed? And why does disappointment always meet my efforts?

If you were my enemy, my friend,
How could you hurt me worse than you do?
The drunks and slaves of desire
Do better in their free time than I do,
Sir, living for your sake. Look, the banks and thickets
Are now so thickly covered! They're laced
With delicate chervil, see how the fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build their nests—but I don’t build; no, I just struggle,
Time's eunuch, and I don't create a single work that comes alive.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send rain to my roots.

51 To R. B.

THE fine delight that fathers imagined; the strong
Spur, living and piercing like a blowtorch flame,
Breathes once and, put out quicker than it arrived,
Leaves the mind with a source of timeless song.
Nine months she then, no, nine years she carries,
Nurtures, worries, and shapes the same:
The widow of a lost insight she lives, with purpose
Now understood and hands that never miss their mark.
Sweet fire, the father of inspiration, my soul needs this;
I want just one moment of true creativity.
Oh then if in my slow lines you notice
The rhythm, the lift, the joyful tune, the creation,
My winter world, that barely feels that joy
Now offers you, with some sighs, our explanation.

UNFINISHED POEMS & FRAGMENTS

52 Summa

THE best ideal is the true
   And other truth is none.
All glory be ascribed to
   The holy Three in One.

53

WHAT being in ancient nature should have that
breath been
That here personally describes these powerful heart-songs
peals?—
Is it a bushy-browed, beetle-browed wave?
With a southwestern wind blowing hard, with a tide rolling
crashing
Of crumbling, overwhelming, thundering all-surging seas
in; seen
Underneath, their smooth surface, of a fairy green.
. . . . . . . .
Or a bold, boasting, soaring, trumpet announcing

_54
On the Portrait of Two Attractive
Young People

A Brother and Sister

O I admire and grieve! The heart's eye aches
Finding you, dark stumblers, oppressive years.
A sweetness flows richly through bluebells, in vine leaves,
And beauty's truest vein is tears.

Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast:
Not that, but so far, all with weakness, blessed
In one beautiful fall; but, for time's forecast,
Creatures all weigh, hope, risk, interest.

And are they really? The beautiful, delicate beams
Mark their joyful youth
That faded away like dreams at the end of the day
Or a race of curls on the swirling brown river.

She leans on him with such happiness fond
As well the sister sits, just like the wife;
His looks, the soul's own messages, see beyond,
Gaze on, and fall straight into life.

But oh, bright forelock, cluster that you are
Of favored looks and spirit and health and youth,
Where is your landmark, seamark, or guiding star?
Only truth can help you. Christ is truth.

There's nothing but good that can be good, both for you
And what matters to you, maybe this sweet girl;
Only God is good—a warning given to
Someone who was found lacking when goodness was judged.

Man lives that list, that push in the will
No wisdom can predict by measure or guess,
The selfless self of self, so strange, so quiet,
Tightly wrapped and all drawn toward No or Yes.

Your feast, with that serious look in your eyes,
Might just get you to drink even more.
The worst will be the best. What worm was here, we shout,
To have caused such destruction, look at the skyward
     branches?

Enough: corruption was the world's first suffering.
Why should I push my heart beyond what I understand?
Oh, but I carry my intense testimony
Against the reckless and selfish actions of people.
     . . . . . . .

55

THE sea took pity: it intervened with impending fate:
'I have tall daughters, beloved, who follow my command:
Let Winter marry one, bury them in her womb,
And she will bear them on the shores of the New world.'
     . . . . . . . .

56 (Ash branches)

a.

NOT of all my eyes see, wandering on the world,
Is anything a comfort to the mind so, so deeply sighs
Poetry to it, as a tree whose branches break in the sky.
Say it is ash branches: whether on a December day and
     furled
Fast or they in clammy tender combs creep
Apart wide and newly nestle at heaven most high.
They touch heaven, pound on it; how their talons sweep
The smoldering enormous winter sky! May
Mells blue and snow white through them, a fringe and fray
Of greenery: it is old earth's groping towards the steep
          Heaven whom she nurtures us by.

(Variant from line 7.) b.

They touch, they beat on it, hover around it; here, there, hurled, With claws sweeping The smoldering huge winter sky. [Look, But it’s more joyful when] May Mixes blue with white snow through the edges and tattered Greenery, while old earth reaches for, grabs at steep Heaven with it, which she nurtures things by.

57

. . . . . . . .
HOPE holds up to Christ the mind's mirror
To reflect His beautiful likeness more and more.
It doesn't work well, so she tries to create
An even brighter shine than before
And turns to wipe away tears from her eyes
And breathes away the smudges with sigh after sigh.
Her mirror is blessed, but she, almost blind,
Holds it until her hand aches, wondering what's there;
Her mirror absorbs the light, while she fades into the background,
Completely unaware of all her glorious gains.
     . . . . . . . .
I mentioned that she dimmed her mirror sometimes,
But in those moments, she sees herself, not Him.
     . . . . . . . .

St. Winefred's Well

Enter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.

T. What is it, Gwen, my girl? Why do you keep hovering around me?

W. Did you stop by Caerwys, sir?

I passed through Caerwys.

W. There
   A messenger might have run into you from my uncle.

T. Your uncle met the messenger—met me; and this is the
     message:
   Lord Beuno is coming tonight.

W. Tonight, sir!

T. Soon, now: therefore
Get everything in his room ready.

W. There’s not much to do.

T. Let what needs to be done be done. Stay! with him one companion,
     his deacon, Dirvan Warm: twice over must the welcome be,
   but both will share one cell. This was good news,
     Gwenvrewi.

W. Oh, right!

T. Well, then get out of here; tell your mom I need to see her.
                         Exit Winefred.
   No man has a daughter like hers. The fathers of the world
   Don’t claim a girl like this as 'mine'. The deeper her
     love grows,
   And the more it wraps around my heart,
   The more some monstrous hand tries to grab it with clammy fingers
     there,
   Messing with those sweet vines, pulls them out, strains
     them, strains them;
   Meanwhile, some voice calls out 'What’s wrong, Teryth! what, you
     poor foolish father!
   How when this bloom, this honeysuckle, that fills the air
     so richly around you,
   Is all, all cut away, like this!' Then I sweat with fear.
   Or maybe a funeral, but it’s not a funeral,
   Some spectacle that brings tears and I must feel it
     that
   Alive or dead my girl is part of it, endlessly
   Marching through my mind. What is this feeling? It
     makes no sense.
   This is too much the father; no, the mother. Imaginative!
   I here forbid my thoughts to trick themselves with fears.

Welcome Gwenlo.

. . . . . . . . . . .

C. My heart, where have we been? What have we seen, my
     mind?
   What strike has Caradoc's right arm dealt? What’s been done?
     Head of a rebel
   Has been severed; written upon lovely limbs,
   In bloody letters, lessons of seriousness, of revenge;
   Monuments of my seriousness, records of my revenge,
   On someone who went against me when I had warned her—
   Warned her! She knew very well. I warned her about this.
   What work? What harm has been done? There is no harm done,
     none yet;
   Maybe we struck no blow, perhaps Gwenvrewi lives;
   To pretend my mood was—mock. I might think so
   But here, here is a worker who sweats from his daily task.
   I’m sure this was wiped; it doesn’t seem right; for still,
   Still the scarlet swings and dances on the blade.
   So be it. You steel, you butcher,
   I can clean you, polish you, sheathe you in your
     dark lair; these drops
   Never, never, never in their blue banks again.
   The woeful, Cradock, the woeful word! So what,
   What have we seen? Her head, chopped from her shoulders,
     fall,
   And nestled in shining hair, roll to the bank's edge; then
   Down the steep banks, like water in waterfalls,
   It bent and gleamed and fell and ran away like water.
   Her eyes, oh and her eyes!
   In all her beauty, and sunlight to it is a pit, a den, darkness,
   Foam-falling is not fresh to it, rainbow by it not shining,
   In all her body, I say, no place was like her eyes,
   No part matched those eyes that often looked down
   But when lifted, immortal, of immortal brightness.
   Several times I saw them, three or four times turning;
   Round and round they came and gleamed towards heaven:
     O there,
   There they did appeal. Therefore airy vengeances
   Are in motion; heaven’s vault fast purpling suggests, and what
     first lightning
   Any instant falls means me. And I do not regret;
   I do not and I will not regret, not regret.
   Let whoever stirred me bear the blame. What I have done violently
   I have done like a lion, done it like a lion,
   Honoring an uncontrolled, royal, wrathful nature,
   Veiling passion in a grandeur, a crimson grandeur.
   Now let my pride be perfect, all one piece. From now on
   In a wide world of defiance, Caradoc lives alone,
   Loyal to his own soul, laying down his own law, no law nor
   Lord now to restrain him forever. O boldness! O deep insight!
   What is virtue? Valor; only the heart that is brave.
   And right? Only resolve; will, his unwavering will
   Who, like me, knowing his nature to the very core,
     nature's business,
   Handles things without flinching. But can flesh, O can flesh
   Support this fiery drive? Not always; O no no!
   We can't live this life fully; sometimes we must grow weary
   And in this dark world what comfort can I find?
   In this dark world where can I find comfort
   When I’ve extinguished its light; its rose, time's one rich rose,
     my hand,
   By her bloom, close to her fresh, her soft bloom,
   Hideously dashed down, leaving earth a winter withering
   With no now, no Gwenvrewi. I must miss her most
   That might have saved her were it just for the sake of passion. Yes,
   To hunger and not have, yet hope on for, to storm and
     strive and
   Be at every assault freshly thwarted, worse thrown, deeper dis-
     appointed,
   The turmoil and torment, I swear, has a sweetness,
   Keeps a kind of joy in it, a zest, an edge, an ecstasy,
   Next after sweet success. I am not left even this;
   I have hacked my entire being in half with her neck: one part,
   Reason, self-control, choice of better or worse path,
   Is dead now, cannot change; my other self, this soul,
   Life's quick, this kind, this keen self-feeling,
   With the dreadful brew of thoughts sour as blood,
   Must taste murder all day long. What do I do now?
     Do? No,
   I am bound by deed; one deed tramples all down here constrains
        all doing. What to do? Not yield,
   Not hope, not pray; despair; yes, that: face despair boldly,
   Dare all, and take what comes—as here this mob has come,
   Whose blood I care no more about, not more rank with hers
   Than sewers with sacred oils. Mankind, that mob, comes.
     Come!

Enter a crowd, including Teryth, Gwenlo, Beuno.

. . . . . . . . . . .

After Winefred was raised from the dead and the fountain broke out.

BEUNO. Oh, now while the skies are blue, now while the seas are salty,
   While rushing rains fall or streams flow from
     fountains,
   While sick people sigh, despairing of sweet health.
   While blind people thirst for daylight, for sips
     of daylight,
   Or deaf ears long for that music of speech that's lost to them,
   While there are cripples, while there are lepers, dancing in sad limb-
     dance,
   People falling into dreadful pits, terrified of water,
   Stone, trembling, cancer, cough, wasting lungs, unbearing womb,
   Hernias, open sores, what else? In short, in burden,
   As long as people are mortal and God is merciful,
   So long to this sweet spot, this leafy overlook,
   This Dry Dene, now no longer dry nor silent, but moist
     and musical
   With the rise and fall of day and night
     providing
   Water, which keeps your name, (for not written in stone,
   But in pale water, fragile water, wild, reckless, swirling water,
   That will not bear a mark, that will not stain a pen,
   Your venerable record, virgin, is preserved).
   Here to this holy well shall people pilgrimage,
   And not just from purple Wales or elm-filled England,
   But from across the seas, Ireland, France, and Flanders, everywhere,
   Pilgrims, still pilgrims, more pilgrims, even more poor pilgrims.
   . . . . . . . . . . .
   What a sight it will be when some poor souls who once used
     crutches
   Throw them away, rising on toes of air leaving behind,
   Or they leave here rich as rose petals that hated coming
     here!
   Not now to name even
   Those dearer, more divine gifts whose refuge is the heart.
   . . . . . . . . . . .
   As sure as what is most certain, sure as spring primroses
   Will bloom anew next year, sure as tomorrow morning,
   Amid returning things, things that revive,
     things that recover,
   Your name . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

59

WHAT should I do for the land that raised me,
Her homes and fields that nurtured and sustained me?—
Be under her banner and live for her honor:
Under her banner, I'll live for her honor.
   CHORUS. Under her banner, live for her honor.

Not the pleasure, the pay, the plunder,
But country and flag, the flag I stand by—
It's the shilling that makes me willing
To follow a banner and fight for honor.
   CH. We follow her banner, we fight for her honor.

Call me a devoted admirer of England's glory,
Determined to preserve her reputation and restore it.
Use me or end me, whatever God chooses for me,
But under her banner, I live for her honor.
   CH. Under her banner, we march for her honor.

Where is the battlefield where I must prove my worth?
Oh, welcome their weapons or artillery.
Timeless beauty is dying while serving,
If I fall for her honor under her flag.
   CH. Under her flag, we fall for her honor.

60

THE times are evening, see how their light fades;
The times are winter, observe a world in ruins:
They deteriorate, they decay even more; they as they pass
Only bring more of man's suffering.
And I can't help. No talk now of success:
Everything is from destruction, here, there, to save one—
Work that to glimpse barely seems started
Makes death a welcome relief, brings sweet oblivion.

Or what else is there? Your world is within you.
There, the dragons roam; root out the sin there.
Your will is law in that little community . . .

61 Cheerful Beggar

BEYOND Mágdalen and by the Bridge, in a place called
      the Plain,
In summer, in a burst of warm weather
Following repeated rains,
When the air was sweet-and-sour from the blooming flowers of
Those golden nails and their bright links that hang along a lime;
     . . . . . . . .

The way that guy feels is good
   What wanting didn’t make him worry, worry
That struggle shouldn’t burn him, a little gift should lift
      him
Like that little stash of coins, my little coins.
     . . . . . . . .

62

DENIS, whose active, sharp, and quick wit
Masterfully seizes every opportunity with intellectual flair.
But Arthur is a sharpshooter: his sturdy arrows will strike
The bare, bold, flashing target when all is said and done
Right in the vulnerable spot of the bare backside under the gaze
     of the sun.
     . . . . . . . .

63

THE fur of fresh dogrose leaves down
His cheeks the bold and flaunting sun
Had darkened with a lion's brow
     Before Spring was finished.

His hair like a tangled mess,
   With strands of hemp flying—
Dull, foamy, loose clumps—falling from their place,
   Hanging down in chaos.

Or like a juicy and jostling shock
   Of bluebells gathered in May
Or wind-blown fleeces on the flock
   A day off from shearing day.

Then over his turned temples—here—
Was a rose, or, if that wasn’t available,
Rough-Robin or five-lipped campion bright
For a beauty-bow on his hat,
And the sunlight crept in, like dewdrops, like cherished
diamonds
Through the weave of the straw of the braid.
. . . . . . . .

_64

The Woodlark

TEEVO cheetio cheevio chee: Oh where, what can that be? Weedio-weedio: there it is again! Such a tiny trickle of song strain; And all around it can't be found For briar, branch, furrow, or green ground Before or behind or far or near Either left or right Anywhere in the sunlight. Well, after all! But listen— 'I am the little woodlark. . . . . . . . Today the sky is two and two With white strokes and hints of blue . . . . . . . Round and round, around a ring And while I sail (must listen) I sing . . . . . . . The skylark is my cousin and he Is known to people more than me . . . . . . . . . . when the call inside Says Go on then I go on Till the longing is less and the good is gone

But down it drops, if it says Stop,
To the all-leaf of the treetop
And after that off the branch
     . . . . . . .
I am so very, oh so very glad
That I do think there is nothing to be had . . .
     . . . . . . .
The blue wheat field is below
And the braided ear breaks out of the sheath,
The ear in milk, lush with beauty,
And vibrant poppies burst forth,
The blood-gushing blade cut
Flame-red and glowing
Bud shelling or wide-open
Tangled and dangled
Fancy-hung delicate head.
     . . . . . . .
And down … the dry furrow
Sunspurge and oxeye
And laced-leaved beautiful
Foam-tufted fumitory
     . . . . . . .
Through the soft wind with V-shaped wings
To the nest's nook I balance and float
With a sweet joy of a sweet joy,
Sweet, of a sweet, of a sweet joy
Of a sweet—a sweet—sweet—joy.'

Moonrise

I WOKE up in Midsummer not to call it night, | in the
     brightness and the walk of the morning:
The moon, shrunk and faded to the edge | of a
     fingernail held to the candle,
Or a slice of heavenly fruit, | beautiful in its fading but
     dull,
Stepped down from the stool, pulled away from the barrow, | of
     dark Maenefa the mountain;
A cusp still held him, a fluke still gripped him, | en-
     tangling him, not letting go completely.
This was the cherished, desirable sight, | unexpected, pre-
     sented so effortlessly,
Parted me leaf and leaf, separated me, | eyelid and eyelid of
     slumber.

66

REPEAT that, repeat,
Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delight-
     fully sweet,
With a song, with a song, a bounce
Off rolled timber and scoops of the hillside soil,
     hollow hollow hollow ground:
The whole landscape suddenly lights up at a sound.

67 On a piece of music

How everything comes together!

See copy, after p. 92.

(Transcriber's note: The image of the handwritten poem is not included in this text version. You can find it online at the Internet Archive.)

68

'The child is father to the man.'
How can that be? Those words are crazy.
Make sense of that if you can:
'The child is father to the man.'
No; what the poet really meant was,
'The man is father to the child.'
'The child is father to the man!'
How can that be? Those words are crazy.

69

THE shepherd's brow facing forked lightning, holds
The horror and the chaos and the glory
Of it. Angels fall, they are towers, from heaven—a tale
Of just, majestic, and giant groans.
But man—we, scaffold of many brittle bones;
Who breathe, from long childhood to old
Age gasps; whose breath is our memento mori—
What bass is our viol for tragic tones?
He! Hand to mouth he lives, and empties with shame;
And, displayed in however bold the name,
Man Jack the man is, just; his partner a hussy.
And I that die these deaths, that feed this flame,
That … in smooth spoons see life's masque mirrored:
     tame
My tempests there, my fire and fever fussy.

70 To His Watch

MORTAL my friend, carrying my heartfelt burdens
Warm beats alongside cold beats, should I
Move earlier or will you fail in our strength and lie
Amidst the remains of what was once a world of art?
The time to tell our story; time is a piece,
Not everything, but we were designed to fail and die—
One spell and it’s done. There, ah, thus
Is the comfort’s song of all or the sharpest pain of sorrow.

Field-flown the departed day no morning brings
Saying 'This was yours' with her, but a new one, worse.
And then that last and shortest . . .

71

STRIKE, you rude person; throw, cold wind, then; rushing hail
May's beauty destroy and thin wild clouds increase
Out in the vast sky; tell Summer no,
Invite joy back, get ready for the harvest, keep Hope weak.

Epithalamion

Hey, listener, pay attention to what I’m saying; take a moment and imagine
We are surrounded somewhere in the shade
Of a leafy, bushy forest,
In the southern hills or the valleys of Lancashire or Devon,
Where it leans against the sides of the mountains, where a colorful, where
     a golden-brown
Swirling river joyfully flows between
Roots and rocks, all splashing around in bubbles,
     down.
We’re there when we hear a shout
That the hanging honeysuckle, the scraggly hazels in the underbrush
Causes a stir, causes a hover
And the chaotic gathering
Of, it has to be, boys from town
Swimming: it’s summer’s ultimate joy.

By then a restless stranger arrives: drawn by the noise
He heads towards the river: unseen
Sees the group of them, how the boys
With daring and playful energy and bright bodies are
     huddling out,
Are earthworld, airworld, waterworld all mixed up, all by
     turn and turn about.

This garland of their fun sparks in his chest
Into such a sudden excitement
Of summer joys
That he races to a nearby pool; sees it’s the best
There; sweetest, freshest, shadiest;
Fairyland; silk beech, curled ash, dense sycamore, wild
wych elm, hornbeam spread above
By. Rafts and rafts of light, flake leaves, drifting like that, painted in the air,
Hang as still as a hawk or a hawk moth, like the stars or the angels
there,
Like something that never touched the earth, never rose from roots
Rose. Here he feasts: everything's lovely! No more: off with—
down he drops
His bleached both and wool woven clothes:
Carefree, they lie tumbled; then with looped locks
Forward falling, brow furrowed, lips tight
Over finger-tangling task, his twined boots
Quickly he opens, finally he undoes
Until he can walk the world with bare feet
And come where there's a chest, sturdy and full of blocks
Built of chance quarried, self-formed rocks
And the water ripples over, decorated with glossy grassy
quicksilver strands and shoots
And with heaven-freshness pouring down from moors still brimming,
Dark or daylight continuing on. Here he will then, here he will
the swift
Flinty, cold element let break against his limbs
Long. Where we leave him, playful and lavish as he looks around
him, laughs, swims.

Enough already; since the important thing I'm talking about I shouldn't let it linger Just bouncing around on this earthly note— What is … the lovely glade? Marriage. What about the water? Romantic love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Father, mother, brothers, sisters, friends Into enchanted trees, wildflowers, ferns Arranged around the shelter . . . . . . . . . .

AN editor of posthumous work is required to provide some account of the authority for his text; and the purpose of the following notes is to address inquiries regarding matters where the current editor has firsthand or specific knowledge.

Sources There are four sources, labeled A, B, D, and H, as described here.

A is my personal collection, a manuscript book filled with autographs—by which I mean poems written in the author's own handwriting—attached as I received them from him, along with contemporary copies of other poems. These autographs and copies range from '67 to '89, the year he passed away. Additions made by copying after that date are not included or considered. The first two items of the facsimiles on page 70 are clippings from A.

B is a manuscript book, into which, in '83, I copied certain poems from A for which the author had no copies. He was careless about creating neat copies of his work, and since his original of The Deutschland had been (apparently) lost, I copied that poem and others from A at his request. After that date, he added more poems to this book as he finished them and made corrections and improvements to the poems that I had copied into it. So, if a poem appears in both A and B, then B is the later version and, aside from any overlooked copy errors, the more reliable source. The last entry written by G. M. H. in this book is dated 1887.

D is a collection of the author's letters to Canon Dixon, the only other friend who ever read his poems, with just a few exceptions of other people or poems. These letters are with me; they include signed copies of a few poems with recent corrections.

H is the collection of unpublished papers that I received after the author's death. At that time, they were reviewed, organized, and cataloged; the more significant pieces were copied and placed into a scrapbook. This collection is the source of a series of his finest sonnets and nearly all of the incomplete poems and fragments. Also included among these papers were some early drafts. The facsimile after p. 92 is from H.

Method The latest autographs and handwritten corrections have been chosen. In the very few cases where this rule was not followed, like in Nos. 1 and 27, the reasoning can be found in the note to the poem. The finalized poems from 1 to 51 are arranged chronologically by year, but in the section 52-74, a creative grouping of the fragments was preferred over the inevitable inaccuracies of estimated dating. G. M. H. dated his poems from the time they were created, and no matter how much he revised a poem, he would mark the date on his new version as if it were the original draft. For example, Handsome Heart was written and sent to me in '79; the revised version, which I am rejecting, wasn’t done until '83, and the final corrections might have come years later; yet his last autograph is dated as if it were the first, 'Oxford '79'.

Selection This edition aims to present all the author's serious mature poems. He likely wouldn't have wanted his earlier poems or so many of his fragments included. Only three examples from the former category are included—these have already been shared with the public and are considered exceptional in merit or interest—but nearly everything from the latter category is present because these older scraps often feature special beauty in thought or language and are always interesting in terms of meter or rhythm: some are as remarkable in this respect as anything in the collection. As for exclusions, no translations are published here, whether into Greek or Latin from the English, which have autographs and copies in A, or English versions of Latin hymns found in H: I don't believe these last ones have special merit, and I group a few religious pieces with them that will be discussed later.

Author's Prosody A complete explanation of the unique prosody created and developed by the author isn't possible. His preface, along with his description of the metrical structure of each poem—which is always included in the notes—should be enough for practical use. Additionally, the intended rhythm, where it might be unclear, is highlighted by accents placed over the key syllables: in the later poems, these accents usually match the author's own markings; in the earlier poems, they do not, but are reliable translations.

Marks At one point, the author used a very complex system of marks to indicate speech movements. The autograph (in A) of Harry Ploughman includes seven different marks, each defined at the bottom. While going through his letters to figure out dates, I came across a few sentences on this topic that justify the approach I've taken in the text. In 1883, he wrote: 'You were right to leave out the marks: they weren't consistent for one thing, and they're always annoying. Still, there has to be some. Either I need to create a notation used throughout like in music or I should only mark where the reader might confuse things, and for now, that’s what I’ll do.' Again in '85, he said: 'This is my problem, deciding what marks to use and when to use them: they are really needed but also very bothersome. (Punctuation) I'm clear about punctuation: I can give a rule for everything I write, and even for other people, though they might not agree with me.' In this last point, the autographs are strictly followed, any rare intentional deviations being carefully noted. Thus, I've respected his indentation of the verse; however, in the sonnets, while my indentation usually matches some autograph, I've felt free to consider practicality, though I followed his evolving tendency to avoid it altogether.

Aside from questions of taste—and if these poems were put on trial for any issues of what might be called taste, they could be found guilty of occasional pretentiousness in metaphor, like where the hills are described as 'like a sturdy stallion, very violet-sweet', or a distortion of human emotion, such as the 'nostrils' enjoyment of incense along the sanctuary side', or 'the Holy Spirit with a warm chest and bright wings'. These and a few other examples mostly attempt to channel emotion into religious or sect-specific ideas, as in 'the comfortless unconfessed' and the unpoetic line 'His mystery must be instressed stressed', or again, the exaggerated Marianism in some pieces, or the stark clash of sensuality and asceticism that damages the 'Golden Echo.'

Style Setting aside the few taste issues that, though few in number, do affect my enjoyment more negatively than all the rough edges of his artistic boldness—aside from those, there are clear style problems that a reader needs to be brave enough to confront and somewhat tolerate before discovering the great beauties. These flaws in the poet's style are significant enough that they may prevent him from even getting an audience with those who appreciate a consistent literary decorum and have become intolerant of its absence. It's important to be clear that there's no intention to overturn the judgment of those faults, for which the poet has rightly faced criticism. The extravagances are what they always were and will remain so. Pointing them out won't earn any credit; however, to ease the readers, I will define them: they can be termed Oddity and Obscurity; (Oddity) and since the first might provoke laughter in a writer who is serious (and this poet is always serious), while the latter hinders understanding (and this poet always has something to say), we can assume they weren’t part of his intention. Some of his thoughts on this matter can be seen in the following excerpts from his letters. In February 1879, he wrote: 'All I really aim to do is keep my verses together in one place—right now I don’t even have correct copies—so that if anyone’s interested, they might be published after my death. And that’s unlikely and far off... No doubt my poetry tends toward oddness. I hope to achieve a more balanced and Miltonic style over time. But just as air, melody is what strikes me most in music and design in painting, so design, pattern, or what I call inscape is what I primarily aim for in poetry. The essence of design, pattern, or inscape is to be distinctive, and the downside of distinctiveness is that it can become strange. I can’t deny I’ve fallen into this trap.' And again two months later: 'Moreover, the oddness might make them off-putting at first, yet Lang might have enjoyed them upon a second reading. Indeed, when someone returned my Eurydice, I opened it and read some lines, as one usually does with prose or verse, just with the eyes, so to speak, and I was taken aback by a raw nakedness and unfiltered violence I wasn’t ready for: but take a moment to breathe and listen, as I always wish to be read, and my verse makes sense.'

Obscurity When it comes to Oddity, it's clear that the poet was fully aware of it, but he didn't fully grasp the obscurity, and he couldn't understand why his friends found his sentences so hard to follow. He would never have thought that, amid all the ellipses and freedoms in his grammar, the main issue was his consistent omission of the relative pronoun. Yet, that's the case, and looking at a simple example or two can help illustrate this point:

Omission of relative pronoun This grammatical freedom, while a common convenience in conversation and therefore has its place in good writing, can confuse parts of speech and turn a normal sequence of words into mere jargon. Writers who carelessly depend on their shortened speech patterns to guide the complex sentences of their literary works often don’t realize the significant effort of interpretation they impose on their readers. However, it wasn't carelessness with Gerard Hopkins: he was fully skilled and practiced in conventional forms, and it's clear that he removed these purely structural syllables from his verse because he believed they took up space he couldn't spare. He needed every bit of space in his scheme for his poetic words, wanting them to crowd out every purely grammatical, colorless, or toneless element. So, when he got into the habit of doing without these relative pronouns—though he likely must have had them in mind—he pushed the license further than anyone before him, as seen when he writes (no. 17) 'O Hero savest!' instead of 'O Hero that savest!'.

Identical Forms Another example of this (from the 5th stanza of no. 23) will reveal another reason for confusion; the line

'Squander the hell-rook ranks attack to bother him'

means 'Scatter the ranks that charge out to disturb him': but since the words squander and sally are in similar positions in the two parts of the verse and are emphasized by a similar stress, the second verb without its pronoun will follow the first and appear as a command; and there's nothing to stop it from being read this way except for the contradiction it creates in meaning; whereas grammar should clarify and support the meaning, not be determined by it. Furthermore, there’s no way to say this line without creating confusion; because if, knowing that sally shouldn’t have the same stress as squander, the reader softens the emphasis, and in doing so reduces or eliminates the caesural pause that highlights its stress, then ranks turns into a genitive and sally becomes a noun.

Here’s another reason why the poet can be hard to understand: by trying to be brief, he overlooks the importance of carefully placing words that can be grammatically unclear. English has many words that can function as a noun, adjective, or verb, and these words shouldn’t be positioned in a way that creates any doubt about their role. Ambiguity or confusion undermines the impact of the sentence. Our author not only ignores this crucial aspect but seems to embrace and seek artistic effect through the resulting confusion. He sometimes arranges these words in such a way that a reader searching for a verb faces two or three ambiguous monosyllables to choose from, leaving them unsure about which one conveys the intended meaning; after making a choice, they might still be left with a stray monosyllable. (Homophones) Additionally, our author doesn’t seem to be aware of the irrelevant implications that our many homophones bring, and he creates further ambiguities or unclear meanings by stretching the definitions of these unfortunate words.

Rhymes Finally, the unusual rhymes often feel off-putting and do more to hinder the verse than to enhance its charm. However, this shouldn't make one overlook the fact that Gerard Hopkins is a master of simple and straightforward rhyme—there are many examples of this—but when he strays into oddities, his childishness becomes strikingly obvious. His intent in these instances is for the verses to flow continuously without pause, making the rhyme that appears in the middle seem like a random phonetic occurrence, merely fulfilling the required form. Yet, his phonetic rhymes often fail to stand up even by his own standards. The rhyme for communion in 'The Bugler' is terrible, and the thought that the poet considered it clever is shocking: eternal in 'The Eurydice' doesn’t match with burn all, and in 'Felix Randal', and some and handsome are as genuinely eye-rhymes as the love and prove that he detested and rejected; and it's more disheartening because traditional eye-rhymes are accepted as they are without needing to be adapted to speech, offering many listeners a welcome change from the rigid sound of perfect rhymes. In contrast, his false ear-rhymes demand that their slight but crucial differences be ignored during reading, revealing their flaw, which is an unpleasant and tacky or even funny quality. He didn't escape harsh criticism and much mockery for such things during his life; and in '83 he wrote: 'Some of my rhymes I regret, but they are past changing, grubs in amber: there are only a few of these; others are unassailable; some others again there are which malignity may munch at but the Muses love.'

Euphony and emphasis These are serious flaws, and as I mentioned, a reader who wants to enjoy the author's talent must be somewhat accepting of them; they actually relate to the ways in which the strong and original effects of beauty are created. There’s nothing more unusual in these poems than the blend of incredibly delicate and beautifully crafted passages with sections where, in a tangle of harsh root-words, emphasis seems to take over euphony; both qualities, emphasis and euphony, show up in their extreme forms. It was this student’s unique way of thinking to take everything to its logical extreme and find pleasure in a paradoxical outcome; this is evident in his prosody where a simple theory seems to serve only as a foundation for unprecedented freedom. He was pleased when I called him perittutatos and appreciated the humor of it—and one would expect to find in his work the power of strong emphasis and the charm of melodious expression, both in their most intense forms. Now, since those who study style must acknowledge the importance of emphatic expression, this experiment, which offers both striking examples of success and failure, should be very interesting; and such interest will foster acceptance.

The fragment, of which a facsimile is shown after page 92, is a draft that seems to explain how an artist doesn’t have free will in their creation. They express their true nature instinctively, as they are inherently made, and are not responsible for the outcome. It’s unfortunate that Gerard Hopkins passed away just as he was starting to focus the energy of all his rich experiments in rhythm and diction into a more understated style, as seen in his latest work. Few will read the striking posthumous sonnets without feeling deep admiration and respect for his poetic talent, which will likely encourage them to discover the rare, masterful qualities that set his work apart.

PAGE 1. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. This is from B, and must have been written in '83 or not much later. The punctuation has been exactly followed, except that I've added a comma after the word language in the second to last line of page 5, where the omission seemed like an oversight.

p.4, l. 21. rove over. This phrase is used here to refer to the continuation of the feeling and sound from the end of one line into the start of the next; however, this meaning isn’t readily apparent in the word.

The two words reeve (past form rove, which is also a past form of rive) and reave (past form reft) are both used several times by G.M.H., but they are both spelled reave. In this context, rove and reaving appear in his letters, and the spelling reeve in 'The Deutschland', xii. 8, is probably due to the copyists.

There’s no doubt that G. M. H. misunderstood the nautical term reeve. No. 39 line 10 (the third instance where reeve, spelled reave, appears, and a nautical meaning is needed—see the note there—) would be accurately described by splice (nautical); and if this misunderstanding was influenced by weave, wove, that would refer to the interweaving of the verses. In the passage mentioned in 'The Deutschland', reeve likely refers to its dialectal or common speech meaning: see Wright's 'English Dialect Dictionary', where the first definition of the verb is to bring together the 'gathers' of a dress: and in this sense, reeve is commonly used.

p. 7. EARLY POEMS. There are two school prize poems; the first one, "The Escorial," was written in Easter 1860, when the author was still 16 years old. It is structured in Spenserian stanzas: the incomplete copy in another handwriting has the first 15 stanzas, excluding the 9th, and the author has added his motto, Batraxos de pot akridas os tis erisda, along with a note to clarify his references. Although it completely lacks the Byronic flair, it seems to be influenced by the historical descriptions in "Childe Harold" and could even be used as a quote in a tourist guide to Spain. The historical content appears solid, and the artistic understanding is impressive for his age.

Here for a sample is the seventh stanza:

This wasn't some classic temple surrounded
By massive pillars in the Doric style
That are wide-fluted, or with shafts adorned
With acanthus leaves, depicted on the frieze with
Titans who fought gods for the heavens; brightly colored,
With golden bands and elaborate designs,
Where beneath the cornice, horsemen charged
With divine forms, a fiery chivalry—
A triumph of light grace and perfect harmony.

The second prize poem, 'A Vision of Mermaids', is dated Christmas '62. The preserved autograph features a very detailed circular pen-and-ink drawing, 6 inches in diameter—a sunset seascape with rocks and formal groups of mermaids, five or six together, singing as they appear to be half-submerged in the shallows as described.

'But most in a half-circle watched the sun,' &c.

This poem has 143 lines of heroic verse. It shows the influence of Keats, and when I introduced the author to the public in Miles's book, I quoted from it, believing it was important to demonstrate that his complex later style wasn't because he couldn't succeed in established forms. The poem is definitely better than the usual school prize entries. I'm reprinting the excerpt here:

Soon—like Summer overshadowing his sister Spring
Smashing and scattering the rare adornments,
And boasting 'I have prettier things than these'
Splashes among the billowy apple trees
His eager hands, in gusts of fragrant wind
Swirling out blossoms till the air is blurred
With rosy foam and falling petals and mists
Of drifting pink rain; and, as he pleases,
The delicate onyx crowns get stripped away,
A glorious tease;—all the wreckage in showers
Crowd down into a stream, and jostling closely
With bubbles bulging eyes, they struggle and cling
On tangled shallows that block the brook a swarm
Of gossamer spheres and rosy floating clouds:
So those mermaids gathered by my rock.

I'm ready to assist! Please provide the text you would like me to modernize.

But most of them sat in a half-circle watching the sun;
And a gentle sadness lingered over everyone;
I didn’t know why—but I recognize that sadness
In Mermaids—whether they toll the bells
For sailors lost in the ocean’s depths,
As poets say; or it’s painful
To understand the dark depths of the heavy sea,
The deep miles of solid green, and be
With hated cold fish, far from humans—or whatever;—
I feel the sadness but don’t know the reason.
Then they, arranged like this, began to plaintively
Sing a sorrowful Siren sweetness on the sea,
Without any instruments, conch, or bell,
Or stretched strings that could play on a turtle's shell;
Only with the sound of their sweet breath they sang
An ancient chant in a language unknown.
Now rising up through the sloping scale
The sweet melody swelled into a beautiful wail;
Now ringing clear as it rose
At last settled into one sweet, deep, heartbroken end.

1862-1868 After the remnants of his school poems come the poems he wrote as an undergraduate at Oxford, four of which are included in this book—Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 52, all from around 1866. During this time, there are about ten or twelve handwritten poems, the most notable being religious verses inspired by George Herbert's style, which I believe have been published. There are also two sonnets in Italian form and a Shakespearian tone (rejected by 'Cornhill Magazine'); the others are attempts at lyrical poetry, mostly exploring sentimental themes of death. One of them, 'Winter with the Gulf-stream,' was published in 'Once a Week' and at least partially reprinted in another magazine. The handwritten version is dated August 1871, but G. M. H. mentioned he wrote it while he was still in school; so I suspect he made so many changes that it’s hard to place it with an early date. Here’s an example of his signature from that time.

Gerard M. Hopkins
July 24, 1866.

Transcriber's note: This signature and date are shown as a handwritten image in the original.

1868-1875 After the poems I just mentioned, there’s a period of silence that can be explained in his own words from a letter to R. W. D. on October 5, '78: 'Any verses I had written, I burned before I became a Jesuit (i.e., 1868) and decided to write no more, as it wasn’t part of my profession, unless it was requested by my superiors. So for seven years, I wrote nothing except for a couple of small pieces when the occasion called for it. But when in the winter of '75 the Deutschland was wrecked at the mouth of the Thames and five Franciscan nuns, exiles from Germany due to the Falck Laws, drowned on board, I was touched by the news. When I mentioned this to my rector, he expressed a hope that someone would write a poem about it. Taking that hint, I started to work on one. Although I was a bit out of practice at first, I managed to create it. I had long been hearing an echo of a new rhythm in my mind, which I finally captured on paper… I don't claim that the idea is completely original… but as far as I know, no one has explicitly used it and made it the guiding principle throughout. … However, I had to indicate the stresses, and there were many peculiarities that would surely concern an editor, so when I submitted it to our magazine The Month, they hesitated to publish it.'

Of the two or three presentation pieces mentioned here, one is definitely the Marian verses 'Rosa mystica', published in 'The Irish Monthly' in May '98, and again in Orby Shipley's 'Carmina Mariana', 2nd series, p. 183: the original handwritten version is available.

Another piece is supposed to be the 'Ad Mariam', printed in the 'Stonyhurst Magazine', Feb. '94. This consists of five stanzas of eight lines, directly and skillfully mimicking Swinburne. No autograph has been found, and unless Fr. Hopkins's views on poetic form were temporarily altered or suspended, it's hard to attribute the verses to him without questioning his sincerity. Since that’s beyond doubt, I can't give in to the strong assumptions their technical skill suggests regarding his authorship. It is true that the 'Rosa mystica' shares a similar light and lyrical style, but that was likely common to most of these festive verses, and 'Rosa mystica' doesn’t have the definite verbal issues that would disqualify the 'Ad Mariam'. He never sent me any copy of either of these works, as he did with his more serious Marian poems (Nos. 18 and 37), nor did he mention them as creations of his serious Muse. I have not found that either of these attempts received any appreciation at the time; it was only after the publication of Miles's book in 1894 that his peers began to acknowledge his potential merits, and their enthusiasm may not always have been wise. It's natural that they would, as some openly say, prefer the poems I am rejecting over those I am printing; however, this edition was created in response to a demand that has gradually emerged in both England and America from a genuine poetic interest in the poems I’ve slowly introduced to the public. That interest has certainly been welcomed and accompanied by the praise of his particular religious group, but since their purpose differs from mine, I regret that I can't indulge it; nor can I ignore the overriding objection that G. M. H. wouldn’t have wanted these 'little presentation pieces' to be included among his more serious artistic work. I don't believe they would appeal to anyone likely to appreciate this book.

1. ST. DOROTHEA. Written while I was a student at Balliol College. There's a contemporary autograph in A, and another nearly identical one in H, both undated. The text is from A. This poem was later expanded, removing its relative pronouns, to 48 lines divided among three speakers: 'an Angel, the protonotary Theophilus, (and) a Catechumen'. The original's grace and charm were lost:—there's an autograph in A and other copies are available. This was the first of the poems I encountered, and G. M. H. wrote it out for me (in 1866?).

2. HEAVEN HAVEN. Modern signature, on the same page as the last, in H. The text comes from a slightly later unsigned version in A. The different copies differ.

3. HABIT OF PERFECTION. Two signatures in A; the first one is dated January 18, 1866. The second one, which has been significantly changed, appears to be from the same date as the text of No. 2. The text follows this later version. Published in Miles.

4. WRECK OF THE DEUTSCHLAND. Text from B, title from A (see description of B on p. 94). In 'The Spirit of Man' the original first stanza is provided from A, and it differs; otherwise, B was not much revised. Another version, currently at St. Aloysius' College, Glasgow, was created by Rev. F. Bacon after A but before B was corrected. This was compared for me by Rev. Father Geoffrey Bliss, S.J., and gave one accurate reading. Its differences are marked by G in the notes to the poem.

The effort put into this major poetic experiment must have helped shape the poet's meter and possibly his word choice: so the poem makes sense both logically and chronologically at the beginning of his book, like a giant dragon guarding the entrance, confident in its power from past victories. This editor suggests that the reader should find a way around and tackle it later from behind; after all, he himself was shamefully beaten in a bold frontal attack, perhaps more easily since both the topic and the style didn't appeal to him. A good way to approach it is to read stanza 16 aloud to an unsuspecting audience. To those interested in meter and rhythm, the poem will be engaging from the start and all the way through.

Stanza iv. 1. 7. Father Bliss tells me that the Voel is a mountain not far from St. Beuno's College in North Wales, where the poem was written: and Dr. Henry Bradley that moel is primarily an adjective meaning bald: it becomes a feminine noun meaning bare hill, and preceded by the article y becomes voel, which in modern Welsh is spelled foel. This explains why it is written without an initial capital letter, as the word is used in a general sense; and the meaning, obscured by roped, is that the well is supplied by the trickles of water within the sides of the mountains.—Both A and B read planks for flanks; G gives the correction.

St. xi. 5. Two of the necessary stresses are on we dream.

St. xii. 8. reeve, see note on Author's Preface, p. 101.

St. xiv. 8. these. G has there; but the words between shock and these are probably parenthetical.

St. xvi. 3. People on land might not notice the error: refer again to No. 17, st. ix, and 39, line 10. I would have fixed this if the sound had not unexpectedly prevented the easiest correction.

St. xvi. 7. foam-fleece followed by a full stop in A and B, by a comma in G.

St. xix. 3. hawling spelled this way in all three.

St. xxi. 2. G omits the.

St. xxvi. 5 and 6. The semicolon is an auto-correction in B; the punctuation at Way is uncertain in A and B, and is a comma in G.

St. xxix. 3. night (sic). 8. Two of the required stresses are on Tarpeian.

St. xxxiv. 8. shire. G has shore; but shire is definitely correct; it is the especially favored landscape visited by the shower.

5. PENMAEN POOL. Early copy in A. Text, title, and punctuation from the autograph in B, dated 'Barmouth, Merionethshire. Aug. 1876'. However, that autograph uses leisure instead of pleasure in the first line; skulls in stanza 2; and in stanza 8, month starts with a capital letter. Several copies exist and vary.

St. iii. 2. Cadair Idris is noted as a reference to Giant's stool.

St. viii. 4. Several variants. Two good copies read dark- some danksome; but the early copy in A has darksome darksome, which B returns to.

St. ix. 3. A has But praise it, and two good copies But honour it.

6. 'THE SILVER JUBILEE: in honor of the Most Reverend James, first Bishop of Shrewsbury. St. Beuno's, Vale of Clwyd. 1876, I think.' A.—Text and title from autograph in B. It was published alongside someone's sermon on the same occasion. Another copy in H.

7. 'GOD'S GRANDEUR. Standard rhythm balanced out.' Two autographs, Feb. 23, 1877; and March 1877; in A.— Text is from corrections in B. The second version in A has lightning for shining in line 2, explained in a letter from Jan. 4, '83. B goes back to the original word.

8. 'THE STARLIGHT NIGHT. Feb. 24, '77.' Autograph in A.— 'Standard rhythm opened and counterpointed. March '77.' A.—Later corrected version 'St. Beuno's, Feb. 77' in B.—Text follows B. The second version in A was published in Miles's book 'Poets and Poetry of the Century'.

9. 'SPRING. (Standard rhythm, starting with sprung leadings), May 1877.' Handwritten in A.—Text based on corrections in B, but punctuation from A. It was published in Miles's book from an incomplete correction of A.

10. 'THE LANTERN. (Standard rhythm, with one sprung leading and one line counterpointed.)' Autograph in A.— Text, title, and accents in lines 13 and 14, from corrections in B, where it is referred to as 'companion to No. 26, St. Beuno's '77'.

11. 'WALKING BY THE SEA. Standard rhythm, in parts sprung and in others counterpointed, Rhyl, May '77.' A. This version was removed in B, and the revision is noted in the text with a new title. —G. M. H. wasn't happy with this sonnet and wrote the following explanation in a letter '82: 'Rash fresh more (it's frustrating to explain these things so analytically) refers to a sudden and thrilling new burst of singing, the lark picking up his song, which he alternates giving up and taking up again all day long, and this continues, as the sonnet says, throughout all time, never losing its initial freshness, being both new and old at once. Repair shares the same meaning—renewal, resumption. The skein and coil represent the lark's song, which from his height seems to drift downward, not directly but gently or in waves, like a skein of silk that’s been tightly wrapped on a narrow card or notched holder, or like twine or fishing line unwinding from a reel or winch, or like pearls strung on horsehair: the laps or folds are the notes or short measures and bars of music. This is also referred to as a score in musical terms, and this score is "written upon a liquid sky trembling to welcome it," just not horizontally. The lark in wild delight races the reel round, distributing and letting out the turns of the skein or coil down to the earth floor, the ground, where it lays in a heap, or more accurately, is all wound onto another winch, reel, bobbin, or spool in Fancy's view, by the moment the bird lands and is ready for another unwinding at the next flight. Crisp means nearly crisped, specifically with notes.'

12 'THE WINDHOVER. (Falling paeonic rhythm, sprung and outriding.)' Two contemporary autographs in A.—Text and dedication from corrected B, dated St. Beuno's, May 30, 1877. In a letter June 22, '79: 'I’ll soon send you an updated version of The Windhover: it only changes a single line, I believe, but since that’s the best thing I’ve ever written, I’d like you to have it in its best form.'

13 'PIED BEAUTY. Curtal Sonnet: sprung paeonic rhythm. St. Beuno's, Tremeirchion. Summer '77.' Autograph in A.—B agrees.

14 'HURRAHING IN HARVEST: Sonnet (with a rhythm that has a special bounce. Keep in mind that the bouncing feet shouldn’t be confused with dactyls or paeons, even though sometimes the line can be interpreted that way. The strong syllable in a bouncing foot always has a strong emphasis, followed by a short pause. The paeon flows more easily). Vale of Clwyd, Sept. 1, 1877.' Autograph in A. Text is from corrected B, punctuation of original A. In a letter from '78, he wrote: 'The Hurrahing sonnet came from half an hour of intense excitement while I was walking home alone one day after fishing in the Elwy.' A also notes 'no counterpoint'.

15 'THE CAGED SKYLARK. (Falling rhythmic beat, free and soaring.)' Autograph in A. Text from corrected B which dates St. Beuno's, 1877. In line 13 B writes úncúmberèd.

16. 'IN THE VALLEY OF THE ELWY. (Standard rhythm, sprung and counterpointed.)' Autograph in A. Text is from corrected B, which dates to the same period as No. 15, adding 'for the companion to this see No. 35.'

17. THE LOSS OF THE EURYDICE. A contemporary copy in A has this note: 'Written in sprung rhythm, the third line has 3 beats, the rest have 4. The scanning flows continuously to the end of the stanza, making each stanza resemble a single long line rhymed in succession rather than four separate lines with rhymes at the ends.'—B includes an autograph of the poem as it was corrected ('83 or later), without the note above and dated 'Mount St. Mary, Derbyshire, Apr. '78'.—Text follows B.—The problematic rhymes are partly explained in the old note.

St. 9. Shorten sail. The seamanship was at fault: but this phrase can be interpreted by assuming that the boatswain signaled this command on his whistle.

St. 12. Cheer’s death, meaning despair.

St, 14. It is even seen. In a letter dated May 30, '78, he explains: 'You misunderstanding the meaning of this as I worried it would be misunderstood. I thought Hare was a brave and principled man; what I mean is that even those who seem unprincipled will do the right thing when it really matters. . . . About mortholes, I feel a bit uneasy.'

St. 26. A starlight-wender, meaning the island was so Marian that people believed the Milky Way was a signpost to lead pilgrims to the Virgin's shrine at Walsingham. And one, referring to Duns Scotus, the advocate of the Immaculate Conception. See Sonnet No. 20.

St. 27. Well wept. Grammar is like 'Well hit! well run!' &c. The meaning is 'You do well to weep'.

St. 28. O Hero savest. Missing the relative pronoun at its worst. = O Hero who saves. The prayer comes from a mourner's lips, asking that Christ has saved her hero, and in stanza 29, the grammar wins.

18. 'THE MAY MAGNIFICAT. (Sprung rhythm, four stresses in each line of the first couplet, three in each of the second. Stonyhurst, May '78.) Autograph in A.—Text from later autograph in B. He wrote to me: 'A May piece where I don’t see much good except the freedom of the rhythm.' In the penultimate stanza, cuckoo-call has its hyphen removed in B, leaving the words separate.

19. 'BINSEY POPLARS, cut down in 1879. Oxford, March 1879.' Auto- graph in A. Text from B, which changes four places. l. 8 weed-winding: an early draft has weed-wounden.

20. 'DUNS SCOTUS'S OXFORD. Oxford, March 1879.' Autograph in A. Copy in B matches but dates 1878.

21. 'HENRY PURCELL. (Alexandrine: six stresses per line. Oxford, April 1879.)' Autograph in A with the argument as printed. Copy in B is uncorrected except that it adds the word fresh in the last line.

'"Have fair fallen." Have is the imperative (or optative, if you prefer) of the past, something that is both possible and actual in both logic and grammar, but naturally, it’s quite rare. Just like in the 2nd person we say "Have done" or when making plans "Have you had your dinner beforehand," in the 3rd person we can say not only "Fair fall" for what is present or future but also "Have fair fallen" for what is past. The same idea (which plays a significant role in my thoughts and actions) is expressed more clearly in the second-to-last stanza of the Eurydice, which you noted.' Letter to R. B., Feb. 3, '83.

The sestet of the Purcell sonnet isn't as clearly developed as I would like. The idea is that when a seabird spreads its wings and you feel a breeze, it represents the rush of movement, but it also gives you a glimpse of its feathers, which identify its species. The bird isn’t aware that it’s revealing this detail. Similarly, Purcell, who seems focused solely on the emotion or thought he wants to convey, unintentionally allows you to notice the unique signs of his own talent.

Sake is a term I find useful … it represents "for the sake of," forsake, namesake, keepsake. I refer to it as the existence something has beyond itself, like a voice is known by its echo, a face by its reflection, a body by its shadow, a person by their name, reputation, or memory, and also that aspect of the thing that gives it this external existence, which is something unique, marked, specifically or individually identified, like for a voice and echo clarity; for a reflected image light or brightness; for a shadow-casting body size; for a person talent, significant accomplishments, kindness, and so on. In this context, it refers, as the sonnet states, to the unique quality in talent. … By moonmarks, I mean crescent-shaped patterns on the quill feathers, either in the color of the feather or created by one overlapping another.' Letter to R. B., May 26, '79.

22. 'PEACE: Oxford, 1879.' Autograph in B, where a comma after daunting is due to a deletion. To own my heart = to my own heart. Reaving Peace, meaning when he takes Peace away, as in No. 35, l. 12. An early draft dated Oct. 2, '79, uses taking instead of reaving.

23. 'THE BUGLER'S FIRST COMMUNION. (Sprung rhythm, overrode, an outride between the 3rd and 4th foot of the 4th line in each stanza.) Oxford, July 27, (?) 1879.' A.— My copy of this in B shows three changes. First draft exists in H. Text is A with the corrections from B. At nine lines from the end, Though this, A has Now this, and Now is intentionally preferred in H.—B has some uncorrected errors from A. O for, now, charms of A is already a correction in H. I would like a comma at the end of the first line of the 5th stanza and an exclamation mark at the end of that stanza.

24. 'MORNING MIDDAY AND EVENING SACRIFICE. Oxford, Aug. '79.' Signature in A. The first stanza is reproduced after p. 70. I copied it into B, where it was corrected. The text follows B except in lines 19 and 20, where the correction reads What Death half lifts the latch of, What hell hopes soon the snatch of. The punctuation isn't always accurate: the original has a comma after the second this in lines 5 and 6. On June 30, '86, G. M. H. wrote to Canon Dixon, who wanted to print the first stanza alone in some anthology, and made ad hoc changes that I don't follow. The original 17th line was Silk-ashed but core not cooling, and it was changed because it was unclear. 'I meant (he wrote) to compare grey hairs to the flakes of silky ash that you can see around wood embers . . . that cover a core of heat. . . .' Your offering, with despatch, of sounds like 'your ticket', 'your reasons', 'your money or your life . . . ' It is: 'Come, your offer of all this (the matured mind), and without delay either!'

25. 'ANDROMEDA. Oxford, Aug. 12, '79.' A—which B corrects in two places only. The text rejects the first correction in line 4, changing dragon to dragon's: but follows B in line 10, where A had Air, pillowy air. There is no comma at barebill in any manuscript, but a gap and a kind of pause in A. In a letter dated Aug. 14, '79, G. M. H. writes: 'I’m enclosing a sonnet on which I ask for detailed feedback. I tried for a more Miltonic simplicity and seriousness than I have anywhere else. I can't say it has ended up serious, much less simple, but it seems almost free from oddness, and in aiming for one quality, I may have stumbled upon another.'

26. 'THE CANDLE INDOORS. (Common rhythm, counter-pointed.) Oxford, '79.' A. The text incorporates corrections from B, which adds 'companion to No.' 10. A has in line 2 With a yellowy, and 5 At that.

27. 'THE HANDSOME HEART. (Common rhythm counter-pointed.) Oxford, '79.' A1.—In August of the same year, he mentioned that he was surprised I liked it, and to respect my feedback, he sent a revised version. A2.—Later, he reworked the sonnet mostly into longer 6-stress lines and wrote that into B.—In this final version, the charm and freshness are gone: his changes to avoid the clash of ply and reply feel awkward; plus, the fourteen lines now include seven whats. Therefore, I have chosen A1 as the base text and, in line 8, have taken the liberty to restore how to in place of what from the original version found in H. In 'The Spirit of Man,' I provided a blend of A1 and A2. In line 5, the word soul is in H and A1; however, A2 and B have heart. Father in the second line referred to the Rev. Father Gerard himself. He shared the whole story in a letter to me.

28. 'AT A WEDDING. (Sprung rhythm.) Bedford, Lancashire, Oct. 21, '79.' A. Autograph uncorrected in B, but title changed to that in text.

29. 'FELIX RANDAL. (Sonnet: quick and flowing rhythm; six-foot lines.) Liverpool, Apr. 28, '80.' A. Text from A with the two corrections of B. The comma in line 5 after impatient is missing in copy in B.

30. 'BROTHERS. (Sprung rhythm; three feet to the line; lines free-ended and not overrove; and reversed or counter-pointed rhythm allowed in the first foot.) Hampstead, Aug. 1880.' Five different drafts exist. A1 and A2 are both from Aug. '80. B was copied by me from A1, and the author's edits on it overlook those in A2. Therefore, the text is from A2 except for the first seven lines, which have been rewritten in the margin (and confirmed in a letter from Apr. '81 to Canon Dixon), along with corrections in lines 15-18, which are also included. However, the corrections in lines 22 and 23 in B likely show a forgetfulness of A2. In the last line, B has the correction Dearly thou canst be kind; but the original intention of I'll cry is supported by four manuscripts in its favor.

31. 'SPRING AND FALL. (Sprung rhythm.) Lydiate, Lancashire, Sept. 7, 1880.' A. Text and title from B, which corrects four lines and misdates '81. There is also a copy in D, Jan. '81, and see again Apr. 6, '81. In line 2, the last word is unleafing in most of the manuscripts. An attempt to fix the second rhyme was unsuccessful.

32. 'SPELT FROM SIBYL'S LEAVES. (Sonnet: sprung rhythm: a pause of one stress in the first line.)' Autograph in A—another later in B, which is used as the text. Date not recorded, lines 5, 6, astray divided to show the rhyme.—6. throughther, an adjective now limited to dialect. It’s the spoken form of through-other, which isn't found in the Oxford dictionary. Dr. Murray compares it to Ger. durch einander. Mr. Craigie tells me that the classical reference for it is from Burns's 'Halloween', st. 5, They roar an cry a' throughther.—line 8. With, meaning with your warning that, etc.: the heart is speaking. 9. beak-leaved is not hyphenated in the manuscript.—11. part, pen, pack, commands of the verbs, in the sense of sorting 'the sheep from the goats'.—12. A has wrong right, but the correction to right wrong in B is intentional. 14.—sheathe- in both manuscripts, but I can only make sense of sheath-, meaning 'sheatheless and shelterless'. The accents in this poem are a mix from A and B.

33. 'INVERSNAID. Sept. 28, 1881.' Signature in H. I haven't found any other evidence of this poem.

34. As kingfishers. Text from an undated autograph in H, a draft with corrections and variations. In lines 3 and 4, hung and to fling out broad are corrections made in the same later pencil writing as line 5, which only appears this way with them. In the sestet, the first three lines have alternative regular rhythms, thus:

Then I say more: the just person brings justice;
     Maintains grace, and that keeps all their actions graceful;
     In God's eyes acts, etc.

Of these lines, in 9 and 10, the version provided in the text is later than the standard lines just mentioned and is probably preferred; in line 11, the alternatives seem to be from the same time.

35. 'RIBBLESDALE. Stonyhurst, 1882.' Signature in A. Text from a later signature in B, which adds 'companion to No. 10' (= 16). There’s a third signature in D, June '83 with different punctuation that places a comma between to and with in line 3. The dash after man comes from A and D, both of which quote 'Nam expectatio creaturae ', &c. from Romans viii. 19. In the letter to R. W. D., he writes: 'Louched is a word I created, meaning much the same as slouched or slouching, and I mean throng as an adjective like we use it in Lancashire.' But louch has plenty of backing, see the 'English Dialect Dictionary'.

36. 'THE LEADEN ECHO AND THE GOLDEN ECHO. Stonyhurst, Oct. 13, '82.' Autograph in A. Copy of this with autograph corrections dated Hampstead '81 (sic) in B.—Text includes all B's corrections but maintains the punctuation of A, except that I've added a comma after God in the last line of p. 56. For the drama of Winefred, see among posthumous fragments, No. 58. In Nov. 1882, he wrote to me: 'I'm a bit troubled about that piece and have set it aside for a while. I can’t seem to get the first line right. You need to understand that words like charm and enchantment won’t work: the idea is about beauty as something that can be physically held onto and lost through physical items, like keys; so the items need to come from the mundus muliebris; and finally, they shouldn't feel outdated. You'll see that this really limits the choice of words. Still, I’ll make some changes. Back isn’t pretty, but it gives that sense of physical constraint that I want.' And in Oct. '86 to R. W. D., 'I never did anything more musical.'

37. 'MARY MOTHER OF DIVINE GRACE COMPARED TO THE AIR WE BREATHE. Stonyhurst, May '83.' Autograph in A.—Text and title from a later autograph in B. Taken by Dean Beeching into 'A Book of Christmas Verse' 1895 and then, incorrectly, by Orby Shipley in 'Carmina Mariana'. Stated in a letter to R. W. D. June 25, '83, to have been written to 'hang up among the verse compositions in the tongues. ... I did a piece in the same meter as Blue in the mists all day.' Note Chaucer's account of the physical properties of the air, 'House of Fame', ii. 256, seq.

38. 'WHAT'S THE POINT OF MORTAL BEAUTY? (Common rhythm highly stressed: sonnet.) Aug. 23, '85.' Autograph in A.—Another autograph in B with a few differences from which A was chosen, the deletion of alternatives incomplete. Third, a copy was sent to R. W. D., apparently later than A, but it has copy errors. The text given is based on this version in D, and needs in line 9 is used instead of the once in A and B, probably because of once in line 6.—The original draft exists in H, on the same page as 39 and 40. The following is his signature at this date:

Your caring friend
Gerard M. Hopkins S.J.
May 29, 1885

Transcriber's note: This signature and date are shown as a handwritten image in the original.

39. SOLDIER. 'Clongower, August 1885.' Signature in H, with a few corrections that I've noted for lines 6 and 7, of which the initial draft says:

It imagines; it thinks; it cherishes the artist after his craft;
     So pretends it finds as, &c.

The MS. shows the pause in ten of the lines: in line 2, between Both and these; line 3, at the period; line 6, fancies, feigns, deems each take three stresses; line 11, after man. In line 7, I added a comma after smart. In line 10, I replaced reave from the MS. with handle: see note on reave, p. 101; and in line 13, I hyphenated God made flesh. There is no title in the MS.

40. CARRION COMFORT. Autograph in H, in three versions. 1st, deleted draft. 2nd, a complete version, both on the same page with 38 and 39. 3rd, with 41 on another sheet, final (?) revision carried only to the end of 1. 12 (two detached lines on the reverse). The text is this last version with the last two lines from the 2nd version. The date must be 1885, and this is probably the sonnet 'written in blood,' which he wrote in May of that year.—I have added the title and the hyphen in heaven-handling.

41. No worst. Autograph in H, on the same page as the third draft of 40. One undated draft with corrections included in the text here.—l. 5, at the end are some marks that look like a hyphen and a comma: no title.

42. 'TOM'S GARLAND. Sonnet: a common rhythm, but with hurried steps: two endings. Dromore, Sept. '87.' With full title, A.—Another autograph in B is the same. In line 9, there’s a strong emphasis on I.—l. 10, the capital letter of country is questionable.—Rhythmical marks left out. The author's own explanation of this poem can be found in a letter he wrote to me from 'Dublin, Feb. 10, '88: … I laughed outright and often, but very sarcastically, to think that you and the Canon couldn’t interpret my last sonnet; that he had to write to you for help. Clearly, I shouldn’t go any further on this path: if you two can’t understand me, who will? Still, when recited, the unusual structures would be dramatic and impactful. Should I explain it? It suggests that, as St. Paul, Plato, Hobbes, and everyone else says, a well-ordered society is like one individual; a body with many parts, each with its role; some higher, some lower, but all honorable, due to the dignity that belongs to the whole. The head is the ruler, who has no superior but God and receives authority from heaven: we should picture this head as uncovered (see St. Paul often on this) and covered only, in a sense, by the sun and stars, of which the crown is a symbol—an ornament but not a covering; it wears a large hat or skullcap, representing the vault of heaven. The foot represents the laborer, armed with heavy boots, because it endures and wears down the ground; symbolically, navvies or laborers, on a large scale or in groups and millions, primarily dig, tunnel, blast, and otherwise scar the earth, and on a small scale, individually and superficially, leave their footprints. The "garlands" of nails they wear are thus the visible badge of their place in society, the lowest in the commonwealth. But this position still shares in the common honor, and if it lacks one advantage, glory or public fame, it compensates with another: ease of mind, absence of worry; and these are symbolized by the gold and iron garlands. (Oh, once explained, how clear it all is!) Therefore, the setting of the poem is at evening when they’re finishing work and one after another are putting down their tools, with which they earn their living, and heading home, sparking the ground not through labor but by simply walking, being well-shod and making no fuss about the hardness of the ground, taking it all easily. And then to dinner and bed. Here comes a strong but effective shift or suspension, in which the mind's action mimics that of the laborer—assessing his situation, low but carefree; then suddenly, with a strong gesture, tossing it aside as if it were trivial. Watching this carefree attitude fills me with indignation at the fools of Radical Levellers. But then I remember that this is all well and good for those who are included, no matter how lowly in the Commonwealth and share in any way the common good; but the problem of our times is that many do not share it—they are outcasts and possess neither security nor splendor; they share worry with the rich and obscurity with the poor, but neither wealth nor comfort with either. And this situation, I say, is the root of Loafers, Tramps, Corner-boys, Roughs, Socialists, and other societal nuisances. And I think it's a very meaningful sonnet, and in terms of execution, very finely crafted, perhaps too much so, I fear. … G.M.H.'

43. 'HARRY PLOUGHMAN. Dromore, Sept. 1887.' Autograph in A—The autograph in B has several edits made without removing the original text. The text is B with these corrections, which are all valid.—line 10, features is the verb.—line 13, 's is his. I replaced the author's period after plough with a colon for the reader's convenience.—line 15 = his lilylocks windlaced. 'Saxo cere- comminuit -brum.'—line 17, Them. These, A.—In the last three lines, the grammar suggests, 'How his churl's grace controls the movement of his booted (in coarse hide) feet, as they keep pace in a race with the wet shining furrow turned over by the plow.' G. M. H. thought highly of this sonnet and wrote on Sept. 28, 1887: 'I’ve been revising some old sonnets you haven’t seen, and in the last few days finished one that I hope is very good, and most of another; the finished one is a direct portrayal of a ploughman, without any afterthought. But when you read it, let me know if there’s anything similar in Walt Whitman; there might be, and I’d regret that.' And again on Oct. 11, '87: 'I’ll include the sonnet on Harry Ploughman, where burden-lines (they could be recited by a chorus) are used freely: in this heavily loaded sprung rhythm, there’s a need for their use. The rhythm of this sonnet, which is entirely for recitation and not for reading (as poetry should inherently be), is very carefully crafted. After thinking about it a lot, I can no longer gather any impression of it: perhaps it will come off as painfully forced and artificial to you.' And again on Nov. 6, '87: 'I want Harry Ploughman to be a vivid image in the mind; if he doesn’t achieve that, the sonnet fails. The challenges are clearly in the syntax. Dividing a compound word with a clause sandwiched in it seems like a drastic move, and I don’t feel it was an unquestionable success.'

44, 45, 46, 47. These four sonnets (along with No. 56) are all written without dates in a small hand on both sides of a half-sheet of common sermon paper, in the order they are presented here. They likely date back to around 1885, and may all or some of them be the ones mentioned in a letter dated September 1, 1885: 'I will soon have some sonnets to send you, five or more. Four of these came to me like uninvited inspirations, against my will. And in the life I’m living now, which involves a constantly tired and stressed mind, whenever I try to do anything in my free time, I make no progress—nor with my work, sadly! But that’s just how it has to be.' I have no definite or single identification of the date.

44. To seem the stranger. H, with corrections that my text includes.—l. 14, began. I can only explain this by assuming a missing relative pronoun, similar to Hero savest in No. 17. The sentence would then read as 'leaves me a lonely (one who only) began'. No title.

45. I wake and feel. H, with corrections which text embodies: no title.

46. PATIENCE. As 45. l. 2, Patience is. The initial capital is mine, and the comma after ivy in line 6. No title.

47 My own heart. As 45.—1. 6, I’ve added a comma after comfortless; that word has the same grammatical role as dark in the following line. 'I search for comfort, which I can’t find in my comfortless (world) any more than a blind man can find in his dark world. . . .'—l. 10, MS. accents let.—13 and 14, the text here is from a good correction written separately (up to mountains) in the top margin of No. 56. Therefore, there are two versions of betweenpie, a strange word where pie seems to form a compound verb with between, meaning 'as the sky seen between dark mountains is brightly mixed', similar to the grammar of intervariegates. This word might have pleased William Barnes, if the verb 'to pie' existed. It appears it doesn’t exist and is blocked by homophonic absurdities.

48. 'HERACLITEAN FIRE. (Sprung rhythm, with many out-rides and hurried feet: sonnet with three [sic] codas.) July 26, 1888. Co. Dublin. The last sonnet [this] provisional only.' Autograph in A.—I haven’t found any other copy or trace of a draft. The title is from A.—line 6, construction unclear, rutpeel might be a compound word, MS. uncertain. 8, ? omitted relative pronoun. If so = 'the manmarks that treadmire toil foot-fretted in it'. MS. does not hyphen or fully join foot with fretted.—12. MS. has no caesural mark.—On Aug. 18, '88, he wrote: 'I’ll now go to bed, especially since I’m going to preach tomorrow and explain clearly to a Highland congregation of MacDonalds, Mackintoshes, Mackillops, and others what I’m not explaining very clearly to the rest of the world, or more precisely to you and Canon Dixon, in a sonnet in sprung rhythm with three codas.' And again on Sept. 25, '88: 'Recently I sent you a sonnet on the Heraclitean Fire, which distilled a lot of early Greek philosophical thought; but the outcome of the distillation didn’t taste very Greek, did it? The result of studying masterpieces is that I admire them and do otherwise. So it must be for every original artist to some extent, and for me to a significant degree. Maybe more reading would just refine my uniqueness, which isn’t what you want.' Note that the sonnet has three codas, not two.

49. ALFONSUS. Text from the original manuscript with the title and 'upon the first falling of his feast after his canonization' in B. An original in A, sent on October 3 from Dublin asking for immediate feedback, because the sonnet had to go to Majorca. 'I would like your opinion on a sonnet written on request for the first feast since the proper canonization of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, a lay brother of our Order, who served as hall porter at the College of Palma in Majorca for 40 years; he is believed to have been greatly favored by God with divine insight and heavily persecuted by evil spirits. The sonnet (I say this jokingly) aims to be understandable.' And on October 9, '88, 'I appreciate your feedback; the "contents of which were noted," indeed acted upon. I have improved the sestet... (He defends 'hew') ... at any rate, whatever is clearly represented in stone or resembles stone is most naturally described as hewn, and to shape itself, in old English, means to hew, and the Hebrew bara to create, even, properly means to hew. But life and living things are not naturally described as hewn: they grow, and their growth is by gradual increase... The (first) line now reads, "Glory is a flame off exploit, so we say."

50. 'JUSTUS ES, &c. Jer. xii. 1 (for title), March 17,'89.' Autograph in A.—Similar autograph in B, which reads line 9, Sir, life on your great cause. Text from A, which seems newer, being written in the distinct faint ink of the corrections in B, and including them.—Early drafts in H.

51. 'To R. B. April 22, '89.' Autograph in A. This, the last poem sent to me, arrived on April 29.—No other copy, but the working drafts in H.—In line 6, I replaced the word combs from the original with moulds when the sonnet was published by Miles; and I'm keeping it this way, confident that G. M. H. would have made a similar change.

52. 'SUMMA.' I think this poem had the ambitious purpose that its title implies. What was created was lost, along with other works, when he became a Jesuit. My copy is an original signed version of 16 lines, written while he was still an undergraduate; here are the first four. A.

53. What being. Two fragments in H. I'm taking the seemingly later one and have added the comma in line 3.

54. 'ON THE PORTRAIT, &c. Monastereven, Co. Kildare, Christmas, '86.' Autograph with full title, no corrections, in A. Early drafts in H.

55. The sea took pity. Undated pencil note in H.

56. ASHBOUGHS (my title). In H in two versions; first as a curtal sonnet (like 13 and 22) on the same sheet with the four sonnets 44-47, and preceding them; second, a seemingly later version in the same meter on a separate page; with expanded variation from the seventh line, making thirteen lines instead of eleven. I’m printing the entire second manuscript and have added brackets to indicate what I think would be the best version of the poem: if the words in brackets were removed, the original curtal sonnet form would be maintained and would include the good corrections. The awkward eye in the added section might have been intended as a vocative referring to the first line (?).

57. Hope holds. In H, a ripped undated scrap that features a bright splash of local color.—line 4, a variant has A growing burnish brighter than.

58. ST. WINEFRED. G. M. H. started a tragedy about St. Winefred in October '79, for which he later wrote the chorus, No. 36, above. He was working on it again in 1881 and mentioned the play in his letters. A few years later, when I decided to write my Feast of Bacchus in six-stressed verse, I sent him a sample and asked if I could see what he had done with the measure. The manuscript he sent me on April 1, 1885, was copied, and that copy is the text in this book, from A, as the original cannot be found. It may therefore contain errors from the copyist. Twenty years later, when I was writing my Demeter for the female students at Somerville College, I remembered the first line of Caradoc's soliloquy and made some use of it. On the other hand, the broken line I have read her eyes in my first part of Nero is shown by its date to be a coincidence, not a recollection. — Caradoc was supposed to 'die impenitent, struck by the finger of God'.

59. What should I do. He sent me a letter with his own tune and a note about the poem. 'This isn't the final version, of course. Maybe the name England is a bit too limiting.' Date Clongower, Aug. 1885. A.

60. The times are nightfall. Revised and corrected draft in H. The first two lines are updated from the original opening in traditional syllabic verse:

The times are evening and the light is fading;
     The times are winter and the world is falling apart;

61. 'CHEERY BEGGAR.' Undated draft with many corrections, in H. The text is the result.

62 and 63. These are my take on the intention behind some unfinished, jumbled lines on a piece of paper in H. In 63, line 1, furl is definitely what I believe it is: an earlier draft that seems to have been discarded had Soft childhood's carmine dew-drift down.

64. 'THE WOODLARK.' Draft on one sheet of small notepaper in H. Fragments in some disorder: the arrangement of them in the text satisfies me. The word sheath is printed for sheaf of MS., and sheaf appears again in corrections. Dated July 5, '76.

65. 'MOONRISE. June 19, 1876.' H. Note at the bottom indicates the plan to revise with an extra emphasis in the second half of each line, and the first is therefore rewritten as 'in the white of the twilight, in the path of the morning'.

66. CUCKOO. From a note in H without a date or title.

67. Since it's impossible for me to be completely satisfied, I'm providing this manuscript as a facsimile example, after p. 92.

68. The child is father. From a newspaper clipping with another very mediocre comic triolet sent to me by G. M. H. They are signed BRAN. His comedic efforts weren't usually as successful as this one.

69. The shepherd's brow. In H. Various consecutive full drafts on the same sheet as 51, dated April 3, '89. The text appears to be the most recent draft: it has no corrections. Therefore, its date falls between 50 and 51. One could argue that this sonnet deserves to be recognized as a finished poem alongside sonnets 44-47, but those had been acknowledged for several years, while this one seems to have been created impulsively one day in a cynical mood, which he probably didn't want to permanently mix in with his last serious poems.

70. 'TO HIS WATCH.' H. On a separate sheet; it seems to be a clean copy with corrections included in this text, except that the original 8th line, which is not crossed out, is chosen over the alternative suggestion, Is sweetest comfort's carol or worst woe's smart.

71. Strike, you rude person. H, on the same page with a draft of part of No. 45.—l. 4, Have at is a correction for aim at.—This note provides some evidence for dating the four sonnets earlier.

72. 'EPITHALAMION.' Four sides of sketched rough drafts and five sides of the first draft on 'Royal University of Ireland' candidate paper, as if G. M. H. had written it while overseeing an exam. Fragments are disordered with edits and corrections; no date. H.—The text, which is missing only two disconnected lines, is my arrangement of the fragments and includes the latest corrections. It was meant to be an Ode for his brother's wedding, which dates it to 1888. It’s referenced in a letter from May 25, which inspired the title.—I printed dene instead of dean (in two instances). In line 9 of the poem, cover should be covert, which should be included in the text, since G. M. H. never spelled phonetically.—In line 11, of might be at; the manuscript is unclear.—On page 90, line 16, shoots is, I believe, a noun.

73. I come from You, God. Unfinished draft in H. Undated, probably '85, on the same sheet as the first draft of No. 38.— l. 2, all day long. MS. written as two words with emphasis on day.— l. 17, above the words before me the words left with me are written as an alternative, but the text is not crossed out. Everything else in this hymn is without question. In l. 19, Yes is correct. After the verses printed in the text, there's some versified credo meant to be part of the complete poem; thus:

Jesus Christ sacrificed
     On the cross. . . .
     Formed in a virgin's womb,
     Lived, died, and rose from the tomb
     With power, and is our
     Judge who will determine our fate.

74. To him who. Text is an underlined version among working drafts in H.—line 6, freed = got rid of, banished. This meaning of the word is outdated; it appears twice in Shakespeare, see Cymb. III. vi. 79, 'He wrings at some distress . . . would I could free 't!'.