Uploaded on June 25, 2011
The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong
Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame,
Breathes once and, quenchèd faster than it came,
Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.
Nine months she then, nay years, nine years she long
Within her wears, bears, cares and combs the same:
The widow of an insight lost she lives, with aim
Now known and hand at work now never wrong.
Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this;
I want the one rapture of an inspiration.
O then if in my lagging lines you miss
The roll, the rise, the carol, the creation,
My winter world, that scarcely breathes that bliss
Now, yields you, with some sighs, our explanation.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
Hopkins: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets
6.25.2023: Hopkins was a Jesuit priest who wrote poetry—very good poetry—in the nineteenth century. You’d think, therefore, that his works would be taught at the Catholic Liberal Arts college from which I earned an English degree. Nope. The guy’s name never even made it’s way into my world until 2010 or something.