Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins Part 13

St. 27. _Well wept_. Grammar is as in 'Well hit! well run!'

&c. The meaning 'You do well to weep'.

St. 28. _O Hero savest_. Omission of relative p.r.o.noun at its worst. = _O Hero that savest_. The prayer is in a mourner's mouth, who prays that Christ will have saved her hero, and in stanza 29 the grammar triumphs.

18. 'THE MAY MAGNIFICAT. (Sprung rhythm, four stresses in each line of the first couplet, three in each of the second.

Stonyhurst, May '78.') Autograph in A.--Text from later autograph in B. He wrote to me: 'A Maypiece in which I see little good but the freedom of the rhythm.'

In penult stanza _cuckoo-call_ has its hyphen deleted in B, leaving the words separate.

19. 'BINSEY POPLARS, felled 1879. Oxford, March 1879.' Auto- graph in A. Text from B, which alters four places.

l. 8 _weed-winding_: an early draft has _weed-wounden_.

20. 'DUNS SCOTUS'S OXFORD. Oxford, March 1879.' Auto- graph in A. Copy in B agrees but dates 1878.

21. 'HENRY PURCELL. (Alexandrine: six stresses to the line.

Oxford, April 1879.)' Autograph in A with argument as printed. Copy in B is uncorrected except that it adds the word _fresh_ in last line.

'"Have fair fallen." _Have_ is the sing, imperative (or optative if you like) of the past, a thing possible and actual both in logic and grammar, but naturally a rare one. As in the 2nd pers. we say "Have done" or in mak- ing appointments "Have had your dinner beforehand", so one can say in the 3rd pers. not only "Fair fall" of what is present or future but also "Have fair fallen"

of what is past. The same thought (which plays a great part in my own mind and action) is more clearly expressed in the last stanza but one of the _Eurydice_, where you remarked it.' Letter to R. B., Feb. 3, '83.

'The sestet of the Purcell sonnet is not so clearly worked out as I could wish. The thought is that as the seabird opening his wings with a whiff of wind in your face means the whirr of the motion, but also unaware gives you a whiff of knowledge about his plumage, the marking of which stamps his species, that he does not mean, so Purcell, seemingly intent only on the thought or feeling he is to express or call out, incidentally lets you remark the individualising marks of his own genius.

'_Sake_ is a word I find it convenient to use ... it is the _sake_ of "for the sake of ", _forsake_, _namesake_, _keepsake_.

I mean by it the being a thing has outside itself, as a voice by its echo, a face by its reflection, a body by its shadow, a man by his name, fame, or memory, _and also_ that in the thing by virtue of which especially it has this being abroad, and that is something distinctive, marked, speci- fically or individually speaking, as for a voice and echo clearness; for a reflected image light, brightness; for a shadow-casting body bulk; for a man genius, great achievements, amiability, and so on. In this case it is, as the sonnet says, distinctive quality in genius. ... By _moonmarks_ I mean crescent-shaped markings on the quill- feathers, either in the colouring of the feather or made by the overlapping of one on another.' Letter to R. B., May 26, '79.

22. 'PEACE: Oxford, 1879.' Autograph in B, where a comma after _daunting_ is due to following a deletion. _To own my heart_ = _to my own heart_. _Reaving Peace_, i.e. when he reaves or takes Peace away, as No. 35, l. 12. An early draft dated Oct. 2, '79, has _taking_ for _reaving_.

23. 'THE BUGLER'S FIRST COMMUNION. (Sprung rhythm, overrove, an outride between the 3rd and 4th foot of the 4th line in each stanza.) Oxford, July 27,(?) 1879.' A.-- My copy of this in B shows three emendations. First draft exists in H. Text is A with the corrections from B.

At nine lines from end, _Though this_, A has _Now this_, and _Now_ is deliberately preferred in H.--B has some un- corrected miscopyings of A. _O for, now, charms of_ A is already a correction in H. I should like a comma at end of first line of 5th stanza and an interjection-mark at end of that stanza.

24. 'MORNING MIDDAY AND EVENING SACRIFICE. Oxford, Aug. '79.' Autograph in A. The first stanza reproduced after p. 70. Copied by me into B, where it received cor- rection. Text follows B except in lines 19 and 20, where the correction reads _What Death half lifts the latch of, What h.e.l.l hopes soon the s.n.a.t.c.h of_. And punctuation is not all followed: original has comma after the second _this_ in lines 5 and 6. On June 30, '86, G. M. H. wrote to Canon Dixon, who wished to print the first stanza alone in some anthology, and made _ad hoc_ alterations which I do not follow. The original 17th line was _Silk-ashed but core not cooling_, and was altered because of its obscurity. 'I meant (he wrote) to compare grey hairs to the flakes of silky ash which may be seen round wood embers . . . and covering a core of heat. . . .' _Your offer- ing, with despatch, of_ is said like 'your ticket', 'your reasons', 'your money or your life . . .' It is: 'Come, your offer of all this (the matured mind), and without delay either!'

25. 'ANDROMEDA. Oxford, Aug. 12, '79.' A--which B cor- rects in two places only. Text rejects the first, in line 4 _dragon_ for _dragon's_: but follows B in line 10, where A had _Air, pillowy air_. There is no comma at _barebill_ in any MS., but a gap and sort of caesural mark in A. In a letter Aug. 14, '79, G. M. H. writes: 'I enclose a sonnet on which I invite minute criticism. I endeavoured in it at a more Miltonic plainness and severity than I have any- where else. I cannot say it has turned out severe, still less plain, but it seems almost free from quaintness and in aiming at one excellence I may have hit another.'

26. 'THE CANDLE INDOORS. (Common rhythm, counter- pointed.) Oxford, '79.' A. Text takes corrections of B, which adds 'companion to No.' 10. A has in line 2 _With a yellowy_, and 5 _At that_.

27. 'THE HANDSOME HEART. (Common rhythm counter- pointed.) Oxford, '79.' A1.--In Aug. of the same year he wrote that he was surprised at my liking it, and in deference to my criticism sent a revise, A2.--Subsequently he recast the sonnet mostly in the longer 6-stress lines, and wrote that into B.--In that final version the charm and freshness have disappeared: and his emendation in evading the clash of _ply_ and _reply_ is awkward; also the fourteen lines now contain seven _whats_. I have therefore taken A1 for the text, and have ventured, in line 8, to restore _how to_, in the place of _what_, from the original version which exists in H. In 'The Spirit of Man' I gave a mixture of A1 and A2. In line 5 the word _soul_ is in H and A1: but A2 and B have _heart_. _Father_ in second line was the Rev. Father Gerard himself. He tells the whole story in a letter to me.

28. 'AT A WEDDING. (Sprung rhythm.) Bedford, Lancas.h.i.+re, Oct. 21, '79.' A. Autograph uncorrected in B, but t.i.tle changed to that in text.

29. 'FELIX RANDAL. (Sonnet: sprung and outriding rhythm; six-foot lines.) Liverpool, Apr. 28, '80.' A. Text from A with the two corrections of B. The comma in line 5 after _impatient_ is omitted in copy in B.

30. 'BROTHERS. (Sprung rhythm; three feet to the line; lines free-ended and not overrove; and reversed or counter- pointed rhythm allowed in the first foot.) Hampstead, Aug. 1880.' Five various drafts exist. A1 and A2 both of Aug. '80. B was copied by me from A1, and author's emendations of it overlook those in A2. Text therefore is from A 2 except that the first seven lines, being rewritten in margin afresh (and confirmed in letter of Ap. '81 to Canon Dixon), as also corrections in lines 15-18, these are taken. But the B corrections of lines 22, 23, almost certainly imply forgetfulness of A^. In last line B has correction _Dearly thou canst be kind_; but the intention of _I'll cry_ was original, and has four MSS. in its favour.

31. 'SPRING AND FALL. (Sprung rhythm.) Lydiate, Lan- cas.h.i.+re, Sept. 7, 1880.' A. Text and t.i.tle from B, which corrects four lines, and misdates '81. There is also a copy in D, Jan. '81, and see again Apr. 6, '81. In line 2 the last word is _unleafing_ in most of the MSS. An attempt to amend the second rhyme was unsuccessful.

32. 'SPELT FROM SIBYL'S LEAVES. (Sonnet: sprung rhythm: a rest of one stress in the first line.)' Autograph in A-- another later in B, which is taken for text. Date unre- corded, lines 5, 6, _astray_ thus divided to show the rhyme.--6. _throughther_, an adj., now confined to dialect.

It is the speech form of _through-other_, in which shape it eludes pursuit in the Oxford dictionary. Dr. Murray compares Ger. _durch einander_. Mr. Craigie tells me that the cla.s.sical quotation for it is from Burns's 'Halloween', st. 5, _They roar an cry a' throughther_.--line 8. _With_, i.e. I suppose, _with your warning that_, &c.: the heart is speaking. 9. _beak-leaved_ is not hyphened in MS.-- 11. _part, pen, pack_, imperatives of the verbs, in the sense of sorting 'the sheep from the goats'.--12. A has _wrong right_, but the correction to _right wrong_ in B is intentional. 14.--_sheathe-_ in both MSS., but I can only make sense of _sheath-_, i.e. 'sheathless and shelterless'.

The accents in this poem are a selection from A and B.

33. 'INVERSNAID. Sept. 28, 1881.' Autograph in H. I have found no other trace of this poem.

34. _As kingfishers_. Text from undated autograph in H, a draft with corrections and variants. In lines 3 and 4 _hung_ and _to fling out broad_ are corrections in same later pencilling as line 5, which occurs only thus with them. In sestet the first three lines have alternatives of regular rhythm, thus:

Then I say more: the just man justices; Keeps grace and that keeps all his goings graces; In G.o.d's eye acts, &c.

Of these lines, in 9 and 10 the version given in text is later than the regular lines just quoted, and probably pre- ferred: in l. 11 the alternatives apparently of same date.

35. 'RIBBLESDALE. Stonyhurst, 1882.' Autograph in A. Text from later autograph in B, which adds 'companion to No. 10' (= 16). There is a third autograph in D, June '83 with different punctuation which gives the comma between _to_ and _with_ in line 3. The dash after _man_ is from A and D, both of which quote 'Nam expectatio creaturae ', &c. from Romans viii. 19. In the letter to R. W. D. he writes: '_Louched_ is a coinage of mine, and is to mean much the same as slouched, slouching, and I mean _throng_ for an adjective as we use it in Lancas.h.i.+re'.

But _louch_ has ample authority, see the 'English Dialect Dictionary'.

36. 'THE LEADEN ECHO AND THE GOLDEN ECHO. Stony- hurst, Oct. 13, '82.' Autograph in A. Copy of this with autograph corrections dated Hampstead '81 (_sic_) in B.--Text takes all B's corrections, but respects punctuation of A, except that I have added the comma after _G.o.d_ in last line of p. 56. For the drama of Winefred, see among posthumous fragments, No. 58. In Nov. 1882 he wrote to me: 'I am somewhat dismayed about that piece and have laid it aside for a while. I cannot satisfy myself about the first line. You must know that words like _charm_ and _enchantment_ will not do: the thought is of beauty as of something that can be physically kept and lost and by physical things only, like keys; then the things must come from the _mundus muliebris_; and thirdly they must not be markedly oldfas.h.i.+oned. You will sec that this limits the choice of words very much indeed. However I shall make some changes. _Back_ is not pretty, but it gives that feeling of physical constraint which I want.' And in Oct. '86 to R. W. D., 'I never did anything more musical'.

37. 'MARY MOTHER OF DIVINE GRACE COMPARED TO THE AIR WE BREATHE. Stonyhurst, May '83.' Autograph in A.--Text and t.i.tle from later autograph in B. Taken by Dean Beeching into 'A Book of Christmas Verse' 1895 and thence, incorrectly, by Orby s.h.i.+pley in 'Carmina Mariana'. Stated in a letter to R. W. D. June 25, '83, to have been written to 'hang up among the verse com- positions in the tongues. ... I did a piece in the same metre as _Blue in the mists all day_.' Note Chaucer's account of the physical properties of the air, 'House of Fame', ii. 256, seq.

38. 'To WHAT SERVES MORTAL BEAUTY? (Common rhythm highly stressed: sonnet.) Aug. 23, '85.' Autograph in A.--Another autograph in B with a few variants from which A was chosen, the deletion of alternatives incom- plete. Thirdly a copy sent to R. W. D., apparently later than A, but with errors of copy. The text given is guided by this version in D, and _needs_ in line 9 is subst.i.tuted there for the _once_ in A and B, probably because of _once_ in line 6.--Original draft exists in H, on same page with 39 and 40. The following is his signature at this date:

Your affectionate friend Gerard M. Hopkins S.J.

May 29 1885

Transcriber's note: This signature and date is displayed as a handwritten image in the original.

39. SOLDIER. 'Clongower, Aug. 1885.' Autograph in H, with a few corrections which I have taken for lines 6 and 7, of which the first draft runs:

It fancies; it deems; dears the artist after his art; So feigns it finds as, &c.

The MS. marks the caesural place in ten of the lines in line 2, between _Both_ and _these_. l 3, at the full stop.

l. 6, _fancies_, _feigns_, _deems_, take three stresses. l. 11, after _man_. In line 7 I have added a comma at _smart_.

In l. 10 I have subst.i.tuted _handle_ for _reave_ of MS.: see note on _reave_, p. 101; and in l. 13, have hyphened _G.o.d made flesh_. No t.i.tle in MS.

40. CARRION COMFORT. Autograph in H, in three versions.

1st, deleted draft. 2nd, a complete version, both on same page with 38 and 39. 3rd, with 41 on another sheet, final (?) revision carried only to end of 1. 12 (two detached lines on reverse). Text is this last with last two lines from the 2nd version. Date must be 1885, and this is probably the sonnet 'written in blood', of which he wrote in May of that year.--I have added the t.i.tle and the hyphen in _heaven-handling_.

41. _No worst_. Autograph in H, on same page as third draft of 40. One undated draft with corrections embodied in the text here.--l. 5, at end are some marks which look like a hyphen and a comma: no t.i.tle.

42. 'TOM'S GARLAND. Sonnet: common rhythm, but with hurried feet: two codas. Dromore, Sept. '87.' With full t.i.tle, A.--Another autograph in B is identical. In line 9 there is a strong accent on _I_.--l. 10, the capital initial of _country_ is doubtful.--Rhythmical marks omitted.

The author's own explanation of this poem may be read in a letter written to me from 'Dublin, Feb. 10, '88: ...

I laughed outright and often, but very sardonically, to think you and the Canon could not construe my last son- net; that he had to write to you for a crib. It is plain I must go no further on this road: if you and he cannot understand me who will? Yet, declaimed, the strange constructions would be dramatic and effective. Must I interpret it? It means then that, as St. Paul and Plato and Hobbes and everybody says, the commonwealth or well-ordered human society is like one man; a body with many members and each its function; some higher, some lower, but all honourable, from the honour which belongs to the whole. The head is the sovereign, who has no superior but G.o.d and from heaven receives his or her authority: we must then imagine this head as bare (see St. Paul much on this) and covered, so to say, only with the sun and stars, of which the crown is a symbol, which is an ornament but not a covering; it has an enormous hat or skullcap, the vault of heaven. The foot is the day- labourer, and this is armed with hobnail boots, because it has to wear and be worn by the ground; which again is symbolical; for it is navvies or day-labourers who, on the great scale or in gangs and millions, mainly trench, tunnel, blast, and in other ways disfigure, "mammock" the earth and, on a small scale, singly, and superficially stamp it with their footprints. And the "garlands" of nails they wear are therefore the visible badge of the place they fill, the lowest in the commonwealth. But this place still shares the common honour, and if it wants one advantage, glory or public fame, makes up for it by another, ease of mind, absence of care; and these things are symbolised by the gold and the iron garlands. (O, once explained, how clear it all is!) Therefore the scene of the poem is laid at evening, when they are giving over work and one after another pile their picks, with which they earn their living, and swing off home, knocking sparks out of mother earth not now by labour and of choice but by the mere footing, being strong-shod and making no hards.h.i.+p of hard- ness, taking all easy. And so to supper and bed. Here comes a violent but effective hyperbaton or suspension, in which the action of the mind mimics that of the labourer-- surveys his lot, low but free from care; then by a sudden strong act throws it over the shoulder or tosses it away as a light matter. The witnessing of which lightheartedness makes me indignant with the fools of Radical Levellers.

But presently I remember that this is all very well for those who are in, however low in, the Commonwealth and share in any way the common weal; but that the curse of our times is that many do not share it, that they are out- casts from it and have neither security nor splendour; that they share care with the high and obscurity with the low, but wealth or comfort with neither. And this state of things, I say, is the origin of Loafers, Tramps, Corner- boys, Roughs, Socialists and other pests of society. And I think that it is a very pregnant sonnet, and in point of execution very highly wrought, too much so, I am afraid. ... G.M.H.'

43. 'HARRY PLOUGHMAN. Dromore, Sept. 1887.' Autograph in A.--Autograph in B has several emendations written over without deletion of original. Text is B with these corrections, which are all good.--line 10, _features_ is the verb.--13, _'s_ is _his_. I have put a colon at _plough_, in place of author's full stop, for the convenience of reader.-- 15 = _his lilylocks windlaced_. 'Saxo cere- comminuit -brum.'--17, _Them. These_, A.--In the last three lines the grammar intends, 'How his churl's grace governs the movement of his booted (in bluff hide) feet, as they are matched in a race with the wet s.h.i.+ning furrow overturned by the share'. G. M. H. thought well of this sonnet and wrote on Sept. 28, 1887: 'I have been touching up some old sonnets you have never seen and have within a few days done the whole of one, I hope, very good one and most of another; the one finished is a direct picture of a ploughman, without afterthought. But when you read it let me know if there is anything like it in Walt Whit- man; as perhaps there may be, and I should be sorry for that.' And again on Oct. 11, '87: 'I will enclose the sonnet on Harry Ploughman, in which burden-lines (they might be recited by a chorus) are freely used: there is in this very heavily loaded sprung rhythm a call for their employment. The rhythm of this sonnet, which is alto- gether for recital, and not for perusal (as by nature verse should be), is very highly studied. From much consider- ing it I can no longer gather any impression of it: perhaps it will strike you as intolerably violent and artificial.' And again on Nov. 6, '87: 'I want Harry Ploughman to be a vivid figure before the mind's eye; if he is not that the sonnet fails. The difficulties are of syntax no doubt.

Dividing a compound word by a clause sandwiched into it was a desperate deed, I feel, and I do not feel that it was an unquestionable success.'

44, 45, 46, 47. These four sonnets (together with No. 56) are all written undated in a small hand on the two sides of a half-sheet of common sermon-paper, in the order in which they are here printed. They probably date back as early as 1885, and may be all, or some of them, those referred to in a letter of Sept. 1, 1885: 'I shall shortly have some sonnets to send you, five or more. Four of these came like inspirations unbidden and against my will. And in the life I lead now, which is one of a continually jaded and hara.s.sed mind, if in any leisure I try to do anything I make no way--nor with my work, alas! but so it must be.' I have no certain nor single identification of date.

44. _To seem the stranger_. H, with corrections which my text embodies.--l. 14, _began_. I have no other explanation than to suppose an omitted relative p.r.o.noun, like _Hero savest_ in No. 17. The sentence would then stand for 'leaves me a lonely (one who only) began'. No t.i.tle.

45. _I wake and feel_. H, with corrections which text embodies: no t.i.tle.