Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins | Page 3

counterpointed rhythm.
Note on the nature and history of Sprung Rhythm--
Sprung Rhythm is
the most natural of things. For
(1) it is the rhythm of common speech
and of written
prose, when rhythm is perceived in them. (2) It is the

rhythm of all but the most monotonously regular music,
so that in
the words of choruses and refrains and in
songs written closely to
music it arises. (3) It is
found in nursery rhymes, weather saws, and
so on;
because, however these may have been once made in
running
rhythm, the terminations having dropped off by
the change of
language, the stresses come together and
so the rhythm is sprung. (4)
It arises in common
(6) verse when reversed or counterpointed, for
the same
reason.
But nevertheless in spite of all this and though Greek
and Latin lyric
verse, which is well known, and the old
English verse seen in _Pierce
Ploughman_ are in sprung
rhythm, it has in fact ceased to be used

since the
Elizabethan age, Greene being the last writer who can
be
said to have recognised it. For perhaps there was
not, down to our
days, a single, even short, poem in
English in which sprung rhythm is
employed not for
single effects or in fixed places but as the governing

principle of the scansion. I say this because the
contrary has been
asserted: if it is otherwise the poem
should be cited.
Some of the sonnets in this book* (*See previous note.)
are in
five-foot, some in six-foot or Alexandrine lines.
Nos. 13 and 22 are Curtal-Sonnets, that is they are
constructed in
proportions resembling those of the
sonnet proper, namely 6 + 4
instead of 8 + 6, with
however a halfline tailpiece (so that the
equation is
rather 12/8 + 9/2 = 21/2 + 10 1/2).
(7)
_EARLY POEMS_
_1
For a Picture of
St. Dorothea_
I BEAR a basket lined with grass;
I am so light, I am so fair,
That
men must wonder as I pass
And at the basket that I bear,
Where in a
newly-drawn green litter
Sweet flowers I carry,--sweets for bitter.
Lilies I shew you, lilies none,
None in Caesar's gardens blow,--
And
a quince in hand,--not one
Is set upon your boughs below;
Not set,
because their buds not spring;
Spring not, 'cause world is wintering.
But these were found in the East and South
Where Winter is the
clime forgot.--
The dewdrop on the larkspur's mouth
O should it
then be quenchèd not?
In starry water-meads they drew
These drops:
which be they? stars or dew?
Had she a quince in hand? Yet gaze:
Rather it is the sizing moon.

Lo, linked heavens with milky ways!
That was her larkspur row.--So
soon?
Sphered so fast, sweet soul?--We see
Nor fruit, nor flowers,

nor Dorothy.
_2
Heaven--Haven
A nun takes the veil_
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.
_3
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 makes 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, your 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.
_POEMS 1876-1889_
_4
THE WRECK
OF THE DEUTSCHLAND_
To the
happy memory of five Franciscan Nuns
exiles by the Falk Laws
drowned between midnight and morning of
Dec. 7th. 1875
PART THE FIRST
1
Thou mastering me
God! giver of breath and bread;
World's strand,
sway of the sea;
Lord of living and dead;
Thou hast bound bones and veins in me,
fastened me flesh, And after it almost unmade, what with dread,
Thy
doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger
and find thee.
2
I did say yes
O at lightning and lashed rod;
Thou heardst me truer
than tongue confess
Thy terror, O Christ, O God;
Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour
and night:
The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee
trod Hard down with a horror of height:
And the midriff astrain with
leaning of, laced with fire of stress.
3

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.