Gerard Manley Hopkins-- The Windhover

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was an English poet, an Anglican who converted to Catholicism and became a Jesuit priest and scholar, teaching Latin and Greek at Oxford and various other universities.

He published almost nothing during his lifetime, by his own choice, but is now recognized as one of the most progressive and experimental poets in English in the last few hundred years. (Think of this work read out LOUD, which is how he intended most of his work. It's got a lot of metre/rhyme.)

(Image from Wikipedia.)



The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dáwn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rólling level úndernéath him steady áir, & stríding
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 & gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -- the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty & valour & 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 wónder of it: shéer plód makes plóugh down síllion
Shine, & blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gáll themsélves, & gásh góld-vermílion.