Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of the most important poets of the Victorian era. He also worked as a Jesuit priest and is remembered for his innovative and interesting verse. His work was not as well-regarded during his life as it is now. Today, he’s credited with inspiring poets like T.S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas.
‘The Windhover’ is an incredibly important poem that Hopkins considered to be his best. It uses symbolism to speak about God and faith.
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
IN ‘Heaven-Haven: A Nun Takes the Veil’ the speaker yearns for a tranquil sanctuary, free from life’s storms, desiring a realm of eternal springs and serene beauty.
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
‘Felix Randal’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins is Petrarchan sonnet written as an elegy for a farrier by the name of Felix Randal.
Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
‘Hope holds to Christ’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins is a poem about faith and hope. The speaker spends the lines personifying hope and relating “her” to Christ.
Hope holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out
To take His lovely likeness more and more.
It will not well, so she would bring about
An ever brighter burnish than before
Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks rise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! What lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins tells of a speaker’s suffering as he tries to understand the role of God in his life.
‘My own heart let me more have pity on’ contains the thoughts of a speaker who is seeking a way out of his depressed mental state.
‘No worst, there is none’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins describes the nature of a speaker’s depression and its highs and lows.
‘Spring and Fall’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins uses a unique rhyme scheme and the concept of nature’s demise as a representation of something much deeper.
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
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