Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins | Page 3

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. 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.
4
I am soft sift?In an hourglass--at the wall?Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,
And it crowds and 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,