Selected Verse by Gerard Manly Hopkins

Source of book: I own this

 

It has been a rather long gap since I last posted about poetry. There are a few reasons for this, most connected to the fact that I like to read poetry aloud, which means I need time and space in which to do this without disturbing my family. 

 

One of the factors was my annual spring break camping trip, which was very nice, but which does not typically include bringing poetry. Second was that I have had a very busy spring for music gigs - which is great! But it also cuts down on the evenings available for poetry. Instead, you might have noticed I have gotten through some audiobooks - perfect for the commute to rehearsal and back. 

 

The final factor, though, is connected to the specific poet I chose to read. Gerard Manly Hopkins wrote amazing, brilliant, and forward-thinking poetry. But it is also often filled with difficult syntax, unexpected metaphors, unusual rhythms, and lots of rule-breaking. This makes it slow to read. You have to do it carefully, and usually multiple times before it becomes clear enough to read aloud coherently. 

 So who was Hopkins? 

 

To describe him as a British Victorian poet would be to miss his true trajectory. Sure, he wrote during the Victorian Era, and he was English. But his poetry was largely private and unknown during his lifetime, only published after his untimely death of Typhoid at age 44. It wasn’t until over 40 years after his death that his poems truly became mainstream, helped along by T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, among others, who promoted his work. 

 

In retrospect, the poems indeed served as an influence on a number of 20th Century poets, particularly those who, like Auden, combined traditional forms with experimentation. 

 

Although sometimes assigning modern categories to historical figures can be problematic, it is widely accepted that Hopkins was gay. His letters, journals, and a few episodes from his life give strong indication of his orientation. However, for religious and perhaps personal reasons, he chose to sublimate his sexuality into service to the church, becoming a Jesuit. 

 

It is fascinating to me that even now, there are people who seem determined to “prove” that Hopkins wasn’t gay - to find other ways of explaining away the things he said and wrote. For example, in his journal, he talked about his horror at finding himself aroused at portrayals of Christ on the cross. He scourged himself after disturbing erotic dreams. He had a huge crush on a college schoolmate to the point where his church supervisor forbade him to see the other man. (The crush was unrequited - he probably never knew who Hopkins was.) 

 

To me, even to read the poems themselves is to see the story. By Victorian standards, many of the poems are shockingly homoerotic, even as it often seems Hopkins is trying to convince himself otherwise. Where others would lovingly describe female features, Hopkins dwells on those of men. 

 

His devotional poetry - and there is a lot of it - is often on the edge of erotic, sometimes even over that line. His sexuality was, as it often was for those who passionately devoted themselves to religion, subsumed into his devotion to God. 

 

(This isn’t just a gay thing either - heterosexuals have channeled their desire into devotion as well.) 

 

There is something about a Hopkins poem that is instantly recognizable. He doesn’t write quite like anyone else. For example, nobody, and I mean nobody - not even Whitman - uses consonance and alliteration as effectively as Hopkins. The sounds tie whole poems together with multiple threads heading in different directions. 

 

He also did something unthinkable to most Victorians: his enjambment often broke not merely sentences but words themselves across lines and stanzas. For example, in “No Worst,” an otherwise standard Petrarchan sonnet, he breaks “lingering” over two lines - “ing” is his B rhyme. And in “To Seem the Stranger,” another sonnet, he breaks “weary” over the line, starting the new line with “y.” 

 

He also commonly writes with set numbers of syllables, rather than accents. So rather than strict iambic pentameter, he will write with ten syllables, and often fewer than five will be accented. 

 

Today, we find this normal enough in free verse. But back then? Crazy stuff!

 

Despite the forward-looking experimentation, the poems still retain traditional forms. In fact, many of the poems are in the traditional and rather rigid sonnet form, which is my favorite. It is this combination of tradition and progress that make for the unique sound and feel of the poetry. 

 

Here are the ones I particularly loved. Let’s start off with a sonnet. 

 

The Sea and the Skylark

 

On ear and ear two noises too old to end
      Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore;
      With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.

Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
      His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score
      In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none’s to spill nor spend.

How these two shame this shallow and frail town!
      How ring right out our sordid turbid time,
Being pure! We, life’s pride and cared-for crown,

     Have lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime:
Our make and making break, are breaking, down
      To man’s last dust, drain fast towards man’s first slime.

 

Note throughout how the sounds are repeated and linked. Ear, ear, end. Flood, fall, off. Left, land, lark; combined with hand and land. Right out turbid time. The list goes on. Read any of the poems out loud, and the sounds become so apparent. And occasionally tough for tongues to say. 

 

And that’s before you get to the vivid imagery, and the contrast between the joy of life in the skylark and the awareness of mortality in humankind. 

 

Here is another one involving birds. 

 

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

 

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

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;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

 

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

 

Another sonnet, this one combines nature, devotion, and a hint of erotic energy. Like the other, there are a lot of repeated sounds linking and tying together.

 

This next one isn’t a sonnet, but it does express a love of nature, specifically a lament for some iconic trees cut down. The trees in question were replanted, and lasted over 100 years before again having to be replaced due to age and safety. 

 

Binsey Poplars

 

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 spared, not one

            That dandled a sandalled

            Shadow that swam or sank

On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

 

O if we but knew what we do

            When we delve or hew—

 

    Hack and rack the growing green!

            Since country is so tender

    To touch, her being so slender,

    That, like this sleek and seeing ball

    But a prick will make no eye at all,

            Where we, even where we mean

            To mend her we end her,

            When we hew or delve:

 

After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

    Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve

            Strokes of havoc unselve

            The sweet especial scene,

            Rural scene, a rural scene,

            Sweet especial rural scene. 

 

Next up is this introspective gem. Written during Hopkins’ college years, it offers an insight into his decision to enter the priesthood. 

 

The Habit of Perfection

 

Elected Silence, sing to me
 And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
 Pipe me to pastures still and be
 The music that I care to hear.

 

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
 It is the shut, the curfew sent
 From there where all surrenders come
 Which only make you eloquent.

 

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
 And find the uncreated light:
 This ruck and reel which you remark
 Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

 

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
 Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
 The can must be so sweet, the crust
 So fresh that come in fasts divine!

 

Nostrils, our careless breath that spend
 Upon the stir and keep of pride,
 What relish shall the censers send
 Along the sanctuary side!

 

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
 That want the yield of plushy sward,
 But you shall walk the golden street
 And you unhouse and house the Lord.

 

And, Poverty, be thou the bride
 And now the marriage feast begun,
 And lily-coloured clothes provide
 Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

 

This next one is one of his devotional poems, yet it also describes the silence of the heavens, the longing for closer access to the Divine that can only come in eternity. Like Christina Rossetti, I find Hopkins to be so sincere and genuinely devout that I do not find the devotional poems to be glurge. 

 

Nondum (Not Yet)

 

God, though to Thee our psalm we raise--

No answering voice comes from the skies;

To Thee the trembling sinner prays

But no forgiving voice replies;

Our prayer seems lost in desert ways,

Our hymn in the vast silence dies.

 

We see the glories of the earth

But not the hand that wrought them all:

Night to a myriad worlds gives birth,

Yet like a lighted empty hall

Where stands no host at door or hearth

Vacant creation's lamps appall.

 

We guess; we clothe Thee, unseen King,

With attributes we deem are meet;

Each in his own imagining

Sets up a shadow in Thy seat;

Yet know not how our gifts to bring,

Where seek Thee with unsandalled feet.

 

And still the unbroken silence broods┬░

While ages and while aeons run,

As erst upon chaotic floods

The Spirit hovered ere the sun

Had called the seasons' changeful moods

And life's first germs from death had won.

 

And still the abysses infinite

Surround the peak from which we gaze.

Deep calls to deep, and blackest night┬░

Giddies the soul with blinding daze

That dares to cast its searching sight

On being's dread and vacant maze.

 

And Thou art silent, whilst Thy world

Contends about its many creeds

And hosts confront with flags unfurled

And zeal is flushed and pity bleeds

And truth is heard, with tears impearled,

A moaning voice among the reeds.

 

My hand upon my lips I lay;

The breast's desponding sob I quell;

I move along life's tomb-decked way

And listen to the passing bell

Summoning men from speechless day

To death's more silent, darker spell.

 

Oh! till Thou givest that sense beyond,

To shew Thee that Thou art, and near,

Let patience with her chastening wand

Dispel the doubt and dry the tear;

And lead me child-like by the hand

If still in darkness not in fear.

 

Speak! whisper to my watching heart

One word — as when a mother speaks

Soft, when she sees her infant start,

Till dimpled joy steals o'er its cheeks.

Then, to behold Thee as Thou art,

I'll wait till morn eternal breaks.

 

Probably my favorite of the devotional poems is this one, which again is more like Ecclesiastes or Job than the triumphal or dogmatic passages. 

 

Thou Art Indeed Just

 

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend

With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.

Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must

Disappointment all I endeavour end?

            Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,

How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost

Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust

Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes

Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again

With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes

Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain,

Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.

Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

 

These days, “why do the wicked prosper?” seems so very much on point. And that last line. “Send my roots rain.” So very good.

 

Hopkins was categorically opposed to war - a traditional Christian belief before religion got thoroughly co-opted by Empire. This next poem challenges our current fetishization of the military here in the American empire.

 

The Soldier

 

Yes. Whý do we áll, séeing of a soldier, bless him? bléss

Our redcoats, our tars? Both thése being, the greater part,

But frail clay, nay but foul clay. Hére it is: the heart,

Since, proud, it calls the calling manly, gives a guess

That, hopes that, mákesbelieve, the men must be no less;

It fancies, feigns, deems, déars the artist after his art;

And fain will find as sterling all as all is smart

And scarlet wéar the spirit of war thére express.

Mark Christ our King. He knows war, served this soldiering through;

He of all can reave a rope best. There he bides in bliss

Now, and seeing somewhere some man do all that man can do,

For love he léans forth, needs his neck must fall on, kiss,

And cry ‘O Christ-done deed! So God-made-flesh does too:

Were I come o'er again’ cries Christ ‘it should be this.’

 

Jesus and John Wayne is nothing new. The British Empire, like all empires, glorifies violence as a “manly virtue,” rather than as a betrayal of Christian values. Hopkins calls for peace in another poem, part of a series featuring the Fruit of the Spirit.  

 

Peace

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
 Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
 When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite
 To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
 That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
 Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
 Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
 That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
 He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
 He comes to brood and sit.

 

I’ll end with this one, which feels very modern. It also is one of the best examples of alliteration ever. Just read it aloud and enjoy all the repeated sounds, the rhythm of the sibilance. 

 

Spelt from Sybil’s Leaves

 

Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ' vaulty, voluminous, . . . stupendous

Evening strains to be time’s vást, ' womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night.

Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ' her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height

Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ' stárs principal, overbend us,

Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth ' her being as unbound, her dapple is at an end, as-

tray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; ' self ín self steepèd and páshed – quite

Disremembering, dísmémbering, ' áll now. Heart, you round me right

With: Óur évening is over us; óur night ' whélms, whélms, ánd will end us.

Only the beak-leaved boughs dragonish ' damask the tool-smooth bleak light; black,

Ever so black on it. Óur tale, O óur oracle! ' Lét life, wáned, ah lét life wind

Off hér once skéined stained véined varíety ' upon áll on twó spools; párt, pen, páck

Now her áll in twó flocks, twó folds – black, white; ' right, wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind

But thése two; wáre of a wórld where bút these ' twó tell, each off the óther; of a rack

Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, ' thóughts agaínst thoughts ín groans grínd.

 

That’s just a total masterpiece. Hopkins may or may not be the best poet to start with as a novice, but his incredible talent and ear for sound is rewarding for those willing to read aloud and truly listen. Whatever his personal loss, pouring so much of himself into poems is certainly a gift to all of us who love poetry.