Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins | Page 8

of
fear or rage.
Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest--
Why, hear him,
hear him babble and drop down to his nest,
But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.
Man's spirit will be flesh-bound when found at best,
But uncumbered:
meadow-down is not distressed
For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

_16
In the Valley of the Elwy_
I REMEMBER a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell
breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet
wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights
the new morsels of spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right
it should.
Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things
wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, swaying
considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.
_17
The Loss of the Eurydice
Foundered March 24. 1878_
1
THE Eurydice--it concerned thee, O Lord:
Three hundred souls,
O alas! on board,
Some asleep unawakened, all unwarned,
eleven fathoms fallen
2
Where she foundered! One stroke
Felled and furled them, the
hearts of oak!
And flockbells off the aerial
Downs' forefalls beat to the burial.
3
For did she pride her, freighted fully, on
Bounden bales or a
hoard of bullion?--

Precious passing measure,
Lads and men her lade and treasure.
4
She had come from a cruise, training seamen--
Men, boldboys
soon to be men:
Must it, worst weather,
Blast bole and bloom together?
5
No Atlantic squall overwrought her
Or rearing billow of the
Biscay water:
Home was hard at hand
And the blow bore from land.
6
And you were a liar, O blue March day.
Bright sun lanced fire in
the heavenly bay;
But what black Boreas wrecked her? he
Came equipped,
deadly-electric,
7
A beetling baldbright cloud thorough England
Riding: there did
storms not mingle? and
Hailropes hustle and grind their
Heavengravel? wolfsnow, worlds of
it, wind there?
8
Now Carisbrook keep goes under in gloom;
Now it overvaults
Appledurcombe;
Now near by Ventnor town
It hurls, hurls off Boniface Down.
9
Too proud, too proud, what a press she bore!
Royal, and all her
royals wore.
Sharp with her, shorten sail!
Too late; lost; gone with the gale.
10
This was that fell capsize,
As half she had righted and hoped to
rise

Death teeming in by her portholes
Raced down decks, round messes
of mortals.
11
Then a lurch forward, frigate and men;
'All hands for
themselves' the cry ran then;
But she who had housed them thither
Was around them, bound them
or wound them with her.
12
Marcus Hare, high her captain,
Kept to her--care-drowned and
wrapped in
Cheer's death, would follow
His charge through the champ-white
water-in-a-wallow.
13
All under Channel to bury in a beach her
Cheeks: Right, rude of
feature,
He thought he heard say
'Her commander! and thou too, and thou this
way.'
14
It is even seen, time's something server,
In mankind's medley a
duty-swerver,
At downright 'No or yes?'
Doffs all, drives full for righteousness.
15
Sydney Fletcher, Bristol-bred,
(Low lie his mates now on watery
bed)
Takes to the seas and snows
As sheer down the ship goes.
16
Now her afterdraught gullies him too down;
Now he wrings for
breath with the deathgush brown;
Till a lifebelt and God's will
Lend him a lift from the sea-swill.
17
Now he shoots short up to the round air;
Now he gasps, now he

gazes everywhere;
But his eye no cliff, no coast or
Mark makes in the rivelling
snowstorm.
18
Him, after an hour of wintry waves,
A schooner sights, with
another, and saves,
And he boards her in Oh! such joy
He has lost count what came next,
poor boy.--
19
They say who saw one sea-corpse cold
He was all of lovely
manly mould,
Every inch a tar,
Of the best we boast our sailors are.
20
Look, foot to forelock, how all things suit! he
Is strung by duty,
is strained to beauty,
And brown-as-dawning-skinned
With brine and shine and whirling
wind.
21
O his nimble finger, his gnarled grip!
Leagues, leagues of
seamanship
Slumber in these forsaken
Bones, this sinew, and will not waken.
22
He was but one like thousands more,
Day and night I deplore
My people and born own nation,
Fast foundering own generation,
23
I might let bygones be--our curse
Of ruinous shrine no hand or,
worse,
Robbery's hand is busy to
Dress, hoar-hallowèd shrines unvisited;
24
Only the breathing temple and fleet
Life, this wildworth blown

so sweet,
These daredeaths, ay this crew, in
Unchrist, all rolled in ruin--
25
Deeply surely I need to deplore it,
Wondering why my master
bore it,
The riving off that race
So at home, time was, to his truth and grace
26
That a starlight-wender of ours would say
The marvellous Milk
was Walsingham Way
And one--but let be, let be:
More, more than was will yet be.--
27
O well wept, mother have lost son;
Wept, wife; wept, sweetheart
would be one:
Though grief yield them no good
Yet shed what