Another poem by Hopkins: The Windhover

Fr. Galdon made us memorize this poem, I guess he thought it the most beautiful of Hopkins’ works? When my husband saw me typing this, he tried to recall the poem because already then, he was my boyfriend and I would memorize it while he listened. Now he remembers more of it than I do. Sigh.

Anyway, some trivia. Windhover is also the title of the magazine published by Jesuits on their work, I think?

The windhover is a bird, a kestrel, a small falcon.

The poem:

The Windhover: To Christ Our Lord

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

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

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

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Reading the above poem made me remember the following quote I saw a few months ago. It’s a beautiful one by Victor Hugo:

Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.
- Victor Hugo