Gerard Manley Hopkins: Verses about Heaven

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

a.

Not of all my eyes see, wandering on the world,
Is anything a milk to the mind so, so sighs deep
Poetry to it, as a tree whose boughs break in the sky.
Say it is ashboughs: whether on a December day and furled
Fast ór they in clammyish lashtender combs creep
Apart wide and new-nestle at heaven most high.
They touch heaven, tabour on it; how their talons sweep
The smouldering enormous winter welkin! May
Mells blue and snowwhite through them, a fringe and fray
Of greenery: it is old earth’s groping towards the steep
Heaven whom she childs us by.


(Variant from line 7.) b.

They touch, they tabour on it, hover on it[; here, there hurled],
With talons sweep
The smouldering enormous winter welkin. [Eye,
But more cheer is when] May
Mells blue with snowwhite through their fringe and fray
Of greenery and old earth gropes for, grasps at steep
Heaven with it whom she childs things by.

Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.

[[A-text]]
to the happy memory of five Francisan nuns, exiles by the Falck Laws,
drowned between midnight |&| morning of December 7 [[1875]].

PART THE FIRST



Thou mastering me
God! giver of breath and bread;
World's strand, sway of the sea;
Lord of living |&| dead;
Thou hast bound bones |&| veins in me, fastened me flesh,
And after it {'a}lmost {'u}nmade, what with dread,
Thy doing: |&| dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger |&| find the{'e}.



I did say yes
O at lightning |&| lashed rod;
Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess
Thy terror, O Christ, O God;
Thou knowest the walls, altar |&| hour |&| night:
The swoon of a heart that the sweep |&| the hurl of thee trod
Hard down with a horror of height:
And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.



The frown of his face
Before me, the hurtle of hell
Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?
I whirled out wings that spell
And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.
My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,
Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,
To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the
grace



I am soft sift
In an hourglass -- at the wall
Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,
And it crowds |&| it combs to the fall;
I steady as a water in a well, to a poise, to a pane,
But roped with, always, all the way down from the tall
Fells or flanks of the voel, a vein
Of the gospel proffer, a pressure, a principle, Christ's gift.



I kiss my hand
To the stars, lovely-asunder
Starlight, wafting him out of it; and
Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:
Since, tho' he is under the world's splendour |&| wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the days I meet him, |&| bless when I understand.



Not out of his bliss
Springs the stress felt
Nor first from heaven (and few know this)
Swings the stroke dealt --
Stroke |&| a stress that stars |&| storms deliver,
That guilt is hushed by, hearts are flushed by |&| melt --
But it rides time like riding a river
(And here the faithful waver, the faithless fable |&| miss).



It dates from day
Of his going in Galilee;
Warm-laid grave of a womb-life grey;
Manger, maiden's knee;
The dense |&| the driven Passion, |&| frightful sweat:
Thence the discharge of it, there its swelling to be,
Tho' felt before, though in high flood yet --
What none would have known of it, only the heart, being hard at bay,



Is out with it! Oh,
We lash with the best or worst
Word last! How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe
Will, mouthed to flesh-burst,
Gush! -- flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet,
Brim, in a flash, full! -- Hither then, last or first,
To hero of Calvary, Christ,'s feet --
Never ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it -- men go.



Be adored among men,
God, three-number{'e}d form;
Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,
Man's malice, with wrecking |&| storm.
Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,
Thou art lightning |&| love, I found it, a winter |&| warm;
Father |&| fondler of heart thou hast wrung:
Hast thy dark descending |&| most art merciful then.



With an anvil-ding
And with fire in him forge thy will
Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring
Through him, melt him but master him still:
Whether {'a}t {'o}nce, as once at a crash Paul,
Or as Austin, a lingering-out sweet skill,
Make mercy in all of us, out of us all
Mastery, but be adored, but be adored king.

Part the second

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"Some find me a sword; some
The flange |&| the rail; flame,
Fang, or flood" goes Death on drum,
And storms bugle his fame.
But w{'e} dr{'e}am we are rooted in earth -- Dust!
Flesh falls within sight of us, we, though our flower the same,
Wave with the meadow, forget that there must
The sour scythe cringe, |&| the blear share come.



On Saturday sailed from Bremen,
American-outward-bound,
Take settler |&| seamen, tell men with women,
Two hundred souls in the round --
O Father, not under thy feathers nor ever as guessing
The goal was a shoal, of a fourth the doom to be drowned;
Yet d{'i}d the dark side of the bay of thy blessing
Not vault them, the million of rounds of thy mercy not reeve even them
in?



Into the snows she sweeps,
Hurling the haven behind,
The Deutschland, on Sunday; |&| so the sky keeps,
For the infinite air is unkind,
And the sea flint-flake, black-backed in the regular blow,
Sitting Eastnortheast, in cursed quarter, the wind;
Wiry |&| white-fiery |&| wh{'i}rlwind-swivell{`e}d snow
Spins to the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps.



She drove in the dark to leeward,
She struck -- not a reef or a rock
But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her
Dead to the Kentish Knock;
And she beat the bank down with her bows |&| the ride of her keel:
The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock?
And canvass |&| compass, the whorl |&| the wheel
Idle for ever to waft her or wind her with, these she end{~u}red.



Hope had grown grey hairs,
Hope had mourning on,
Trenched with tears, carved with cares,
Hope was twelve hours gone;
And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day
Nor rescue, only rocket |&| light ship, shone,
And lives at last were washing away:
To the shrouds they took, -- they shook in the hurling |&| horrible airs.



One stirred from the rigging to save
The wild woman-kind below,
With a rope's end round the man, handy |&| brave --
He was pitched to his death at a blow,
For all his dreadnought breast |&| braids of thew:
They could tell him for hours, dandled the to |&| fro
Through the cobbled foam-fleece. What could he do
With the burl of the fountains of air, buck |&| the flood of the wave?



They fought with God's cold --
And they could not |&| fell to the deck
(Crushed them) or water (and drowned them) or rolled
With the sea-romp over the wreck.
Night roared, with the heart-break hearing a heart-broke rabble,
The woman's wailing, the crying of child without check --
Till a lioness arose breasting the babble,
A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told.



Ah, touched in your bower of bone
Are you! turned for an exquisite smart,
Have you! make words break from me here all alone,
Do you! -- mother of being in me, heart.
O unteachably after evil, but uttering truth,
Why, tears! is it? tears; such a melting, a madrigal start!
Never-eldering revel |&| river of youth,
What can it be, this glee? the good you have there of your own?



Sister, a sister calling
A master, her master |&| mine! --
And the inboard seas run swirling |&| hawling?
The rash smart sloggering brine
Blinds her; but sh{'e} that weather sees {'o}ne thing, one;
Has {'o}ne fetch {'i}n her: she rears herself to divine
Ears, |&| the call of the tall nun
To the men in the tops |&| the tackle rode over the storm's brawling.



She was first of a five |&| came
Of a coif{`e}d sisterhood.
(O Deutschland, double a desperate name!
O world wide of its good!
But Gertrude, lily, |&| Luther, are two of a town,
Christ's lily |&| beast of the waste wood:
From life's dawn it is drawn down,
Abel is Cain's brother and breasts they have sucked the same.)



Loathed for a love men knew in them,
Banned by the land of their birth,
Rhine refused them, Thames would ruin them;
Surf, snow, river |&| earth
Gnashed: but thou art above, thou Orion of light;
Thy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth,
Thou martyr-master: in th{'y} sight
Storm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers -- sweet heaven was
astrew in them.



Five! the finding |&| sake
And cipher of suffering Christ.
Mark, the mark is of man's make
And the word of it Sacrificed.
But he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken,
Before-time-taken, dearest priz{`e}d |&| priced --
Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token
For lettering of the lamb's fleece, ruddying of the rose-flake.



Joy fall to thee, father Francis,
Drawn to the life that died;
With the gnarls of the nails in thee, niche of the lance, his
Lovescape crucified
And seal of his seraph-arrival! |&| these thy daughters
And five-liv{`e}d |&| leav{`e}d favour |&| pride,
Are sisterly sealed in wild waters,
To bathe in his fall-gold mercies, to breathe in his all-fire glances.



Away in the loveable west,
On a pastoral forehead of Wales,
I was under a roof here, I was at rest,
And they the prey of the gales;
She to the black-about air, to the breaker, the thickly
Falling flakes, to the throng that catches and quails
Was calling "O Christ, Christ, come quickly":
The cross to her she calls Christ to her, christens her wildworst Best.



The majesty! what did she mean?
Breathe, arch |&| original Breath.
Is it l{'o}ve in her of the b{'e}ing as her l{'o}ver had b{'e}en?
Breathe, body of lovely Death.
They were else-minded then, altogether, the men
W{'o}ke thee with a we are p{'e}rishing in the w{'e}ather of
Genn{'e}sar{'e}th.
Or {'i}s it that she cried for the crown then,
The keener to come at the comfort for feeling the combating keen?



For how to the heart's cheering
The down-dugged ground-hugged grey
Hovers off, the jay-blue heavens appearing
Of pied |&| peeled May!
Blue-beating |&| hoary-glow height; or night, still higher,
With belled fire |&| the moth-soft Milky way,
What by your measure is the heaven of desire,
The treasure never eyesight got, nor was ever guessed what for the
hearing?



N{'o}, but it was n{'o}t these.
The jading |&| jar of the cart,
Time's t{'a}sking, it is fathers that asking for ease
Of the sodden-with-its-sorrowing heart,
Not danger, electrical horror; then further it finds
The appealing of the Passion is tenderer in prayer apart:
Other, I gather, in measure her mind's
Burden, in wind's burly |&| beat of endragon{`e}d seas.



But how shall I . . . make me room there:
Reach me a ... Fancy, come faster --
Strike you the sight of it? look at it loom there,
Thing that she ... There then! the Master,
Ipse, the only one, Christ, King, Head:
He was to cure the extremity where he had cast her;
Do, deal, lord it with living |&| dead;
Let him ride, her pride, in his triumph, despatch |&| have done with his
doom there.



Ah! there was a heart right!
There was single eye!
Read the unshapeable shock night
And knew the who |&| the why;
Wording it how but by him that present |&| past,
Heaven |&| earth are word of, worded by? --
The Simon Peter of a soul! to the blast
T{'a}rp{'e}{'i}an-fast, but a blown beacon of light.



Jesu, heart's light,
Jesu, maid's son,
What was the feast followed the night
Thou hadst glory of this nun? --
F{'e}ast of the {'o}ne w{'o}man with{'o}ut st{'a}in.
For so conceiv{`e}d, so to conceive thee is done;
But here was heart-throe, birth of a brain,
Word, that heard |&| kept thee |&| uttered thee {'o}utr{'i}ght.



Well, sh{'e} has th{'e}e for the pain, for the
Patience: but pity of the rest of them!
Heart, go |&| bleed at a bitterer vein for the
Comfortless unconfessed of them --
No not uncomforted: lovely-felicitous Providence
F{'i}nger of a t{'e}nder of, O of a f{'e}athery d{'e}licacy, the
br{'e}ast of the
Maiden could obey so, be a bell to, ring {'o}f it, and
Startle the poor sheep back! is the shipwrack then a harvest, does
tempest carry the grain for thee?



I admire thee, master of the tides,
Of the Yore-flood, of the year's fall;
The recurb |&| the recovery of the gulf's sides,
The girth of it |&| the wharf of it |&| the wall;
Staunching, quenching ocean of a motionable mind;
Ground of being, |&| granite of it: p{'a}st {'a}ll
Gr{'a}sp G{'o}d, thr{'o}ned beh{'i}nd
Death with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes but abides;



With a mercy that outrides
The all of water, an ark
For the listener; for the lingerer with a love glides
Lower than death |&| the dark;
A vein for the visiting of the past-prayer, pent in prison,
The-last-breath penitent spirits -- the uttermost mark
Our passion-plung{`e}d giant risen,
The Christ of the Father compassionate, fetched in the storm of his
strides.



Now burn, new born to the world,
Doubled-natur{`e}d name,
The heaven-flung, heart-fleshed, maiden-furled
Miracle-in-Mary-of-flame,
Mid-number{`e}d he in three of the thunder-throne!
Not a dooms-day dazzle in his coming nor dark as he came;
Kind, but royally reclaiming his own;
A released sh{'o}wer, let fl{'a}sh to the sh{'i}re, not a l{'i}ghtning of
f{'i}re hard-h{'u}rled.



Dame, at our door
Dr{'o}wned, |&| among o{'u}r sh{'o}als,
Remember us in the roads, the heaven-haven of the reward:
Our K{'i}ng back, Oh, upon {'E}nglish s{'o}uls!
Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a
crimson-cresseted east,
More brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as his reign rolls,
Pride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest,
Our h{'e}arts' charity's h{'e}arth's f{'i}re, our th{'o}ughts' chivalry's
thr{'o}ng's L{'o}rd.