•9:52 AM
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
10 comments:
Beautiful. I think you are rubbing off on me after all these years. As soon as I read the first line, I knew it was GMH! Yay, me! And I see this is the origin of your "Plough down sillion" in your Topical Guide. Lovely.
Now that's just beautiful.
A new poet to fall for. Many, many thanks for the sharing of that.
I was never good at reading or writing poetry. I guess the guessing of what they are trying to say turns me off. Some poetry though I do understand and enjoy though...so I guess I'm not a complete poetry idiot.
Ahhh, just what I needed. blue-bleak embers...wow! Thanks for posting that one! It has been a while for me, writing or reading poetry. I think about it alot, I will stop by to feed that missing part of me, great site!
beautiful
Nice. And Sirdar may have poetry in him yet, his dad writes poetry. Sirdar just has to age a few years. I have not taken time to study or read much poetry lately, it is always nice to go to someone's blog and get the exposure to culture I am so lacking at times.
Ahh, one of my all-time favorites for so many reasons. Thank you!
No SOS? Now, if I hadn't just received the gift of two chapters to revel in, I'd be seriously pouting over here.
Very beautiful. Especially love the line "Brute beauty and valour and act . . ."