Welcome back to Poem of The Day! Today’s poem is a joyous gush of a sonnet about a hawk, or windhover, by the Victorian poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, introduced by Mr Macdonald-Brown.
Hopkins was a priest (hence the poems Christian dedication), but theres nothing overtly religious in his breathless ode to the wild bird, soaring and swooping above him. The poems intensity reminds me of the paintings by Hopkins contemporary, Vincent van Gogh: both artists viewed the natural world through ecstatic eyes. (And, like van Gogh, Hopkins was far too original to be appreciated in his lifetime).
I think its a poem for not just reading aloud, but learning off by heart and declaiming loudly to the sky. Holler out the first sentence in one long breath. Relish the relentless alliteration. Cry O my chevalier! from the heart! And dont worry about the obscure bits (sillion anyone?): just go with the flow of, the mastery of the thing!
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: shèer plòd makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 89)
