Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins Part 6

_31 Spring and Fall:

to a young child_

MaRGAReT, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name: Sorrow's springs are the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.

_32 Spelt from Sibyl's Leaves_

EARNEST, earthless, equal, attuneable, vaulty, voluminous, . .

stupendous Evening strains to be time's vast, womb-of-all, home-of-all, hea.r.s.e-of-all night.

Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, her wild hollow h.o.a.rlight hung to the height Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, stars princ.i.p.al, overbend us, Fire-featuring heaven. For earth her being has unbound, her dapple is at an end, as- tray or aswarm, all throughther, in throngs; self in self steeped and pashed--quite Disremembering, dismembering all now. Heart, you round me right With: our evening is over us; our night whelms, whelms, and will end us.

Only the beak-leaved boughs dragonish damask the tool-smooth bleak light; black, Ever so black on it. our tale, our oracle! Let life, waned, ah let life wind Off her once skeined stained veined variety upon, all on two spools; part, pen, pack Now her all in two flocks, two folds--black, white; right, wrong; reckon but, reck but, mind But these two; ware of a world where but these two tell, each off the other; of a rack Where, selfwrung, selfstrung, sheathe- and shelterless, thoughts against thoughts in groans grind.

_33 Inversnaid_

THIS darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollrock highroad roaring down, In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of faawn-froth Turns and twindles over the broth Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning, It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through, Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

_34

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves--goes itself; _myself_ it speaks and spells, Crying _What I do is me: for that I came._

i say more: the just man justices; Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces; Acts in G.o.d's eye what in G.o.d's eye he is-- Christ--for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men's faces.

_35 Ribblesdale_

EARTH, sweet Earth, sweet landscape, with leaves throng And louched low gra.s.s, heaven that dost appeal To, with no tongue to plead, no heart to feel; That canst but only be, but dost that long--

Thou canst but be, but that thou well dost; strong Thy plea with him who dealt, nay does now deal, Thy lovely dale down thus and thus bids reel Thy river, and o'er gives all to rack or wrong.

And what is Earth's eye, tongue, or heart else, where Else, but in dear and dogged man?--Ah, the heir To his own selfbent so bound, so tied to his turn, To thriftless reave both our rich round world bare And none reck of world after, this bids wear Earth brows of such care, care and dear concern.

_36 The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo

(Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well)_

THE LEADEN ECHO

How to keep--is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key to keep Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, . . . from vanis.h.i.+ng away?

o is there no frowning of these wrinkles, ranked wrinkles deep, Down? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?

No there's none, there's none, O no there's none, Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair, Do what you may do, what, do what you may, And wisdom is early to despair: Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done To keep at bay Age and age's evils, h.o.a.r hair, Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death's worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay; So be beginning, be beginning to despair.

O there's none; no no no there's none: Be beginning to despair, to despair, Despair, despair, despair, despair.

THE GOLDEN ECHO

Spare!

There is one, yes I have one (Hush there!); Only not within seeing of the sun, Not within the singeing of the strong sun, Tall sun's tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth's air.

Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one, one. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place, Where whatever's prized and pa.s.ses of us, everything that's fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone, Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matched face, The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet, Never fleets more, fastened with the tenderest truth To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an ever- lastingness of, O it is an all youth!

Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace, Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace-- Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath, And with sighs soaring, soaring sighs deliver Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to G.o.d, beauty's self and beauty's giver.

See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair Is, hair of the head, numbered.

Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept, This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold What while we, while we slumbered.

O then, weary then wh should we tread? O why are we so haggard at the heart, so care-coiled, care-killed, so f.a.gged, so fashed, so cogged, so c.u.mbered, When the thing we freely forfeit is kept with fonder a care, Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder A care kept. Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.-- Yonder.--What high as that! We follow, now we follow.-- Yonder, yes yonder, yonder, Yonder.

_37 The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe_

WILD air, world-mothering air, Nestling me everywhere, That each eyelash or hair Girdles; goes home betwixt The fleeciest, frailest-flixed Snowflake; that's fairly mixed With, riddles, and is rife In every least thing's life; This needful, never spent, And nursing element; 10 My more than meat and drink, My meal at every wink; This air, which, by life's law, My lung must draw and draw Now but to breathe its praise, Minds me in many ways Of her who not only Gave G.o.d's infinity Dwindled to infancy Welcome in womb and breast, 20 Birth, milk, and all the rest But mothers each new grace That does now reach our race-- Mary Immaculate, Merely a woman, yet Whose presence, power is Great as no G.o.ddess's Was deemed, dreamed; who This one work has to do-- Let all G.o.d's glory through, 30 G.o.d's glory which would go Through her and from her flow Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound With mercy round and round As if with air: the same Is Mary, more by name.

She, wild web, wondrous robe, Mantles the guilty globe, Since G.o.d has let dispense 40 Her prayers his providence: Nay, more than almoner, The sweet alms' self is her And men are meant to share Her life as life does air.

If I have understood, She holds high motherhood Towards all our ghostly good And plays in grace her part About man's beating heart, 50 Laying, like air's fine flood, The deathdance in his blood; Yet no part but what will Be Christ our Saviour still.

Of her flesh he took flesh: He does take fresh and fresh, Though much the mystery how, Not flesh but spirit now And makes, O marvellous!

New Nazareths in us, 60 Where she shall yet conceive Him, morning, noon, and eve; New Bethlems, and he born There, evening, noon, and morn Bethlem or Nazareth, Men here may draw like breath More Christ and baffle death; Who, born so, comes to be New self and n.o.bler me In each one and each one 70 More makes, when all is done, Both G.o.d's and Mary's Son.

Again, look overhead How air is azured; O how! nay do but stand Where you can lift your hand Skywards: rich, rich it laps Round the four fingergaps.

Yet such a sapphire-shot, Charged, steeped sky will not 80 Stain light. Yea, mark you this: It does no prejudice.

The gla.s.s-blue days are those When every colour glows, Each shape and shadow shows.

Blue be it: this blue heaven The seven or seven times seven Hued sunbeam will transmit Perfect, not alter it.

Or if there does some soft, 90 On things aloof, aloft, Bloom breathe, that one breath more Earth is the fairer for.

Whereas did air not make This bath of blue and slake His fire, the sun would shake, A blear and blinding ball With blackness bound, and all The thick stars round him roll Flas.h.i.+ng like flecks of coal, 100 Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt, In grimy vasty vault.

So G.o.d was G.o.d of old: A mother came to mould Those limbs like ours which are What must make our daystar Much dearer to mankind; Whose glory bare would blind Or less would win man's mind.

Through her we may see him 110 Made sweeter, not made dim, And her hand leaves his light Sifted to suit our sight.

Be thou then, thou dear Mother, my atmosphere; My happier world, wherein To wend and meet no sin; Above me, round me lie Fronting my froward eye With sweet and scarless sky; 120 Stir in my ears, speak there Of G.o.d's love, O live air, Of patience, penance, prayer: World-mothering air, air wild, Wound with thee, in thee isled, Fold home, fast fold thy child.

_38 To what serves Mortal Beauty?_

To what serves mortal beauty dangerous; does set danc- ing blood the O-seal-that-so feature, flung prouder form Than Purcell tune lets tread to? See: it does this: keeps warm Men's wits to the things that are; what good means--where a glance Master more may than gaze, gaze out of countenance.

Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh windfalls of war's storm, How then should Gregory, a father, have gleaned else from swarm- ed Rome? But G.o.d to a nation dealt that day's dear chance.

To man, that needs would wors.h.i.+p block or barren stone, Our law says: Love what are love's worthiest, were all known; World's loveliest--men's selves. Self flashes off frame and face.

What do then? how meet beauty? Merely meet it; own, Home at heart, heaven's sweet gift; then leave, let that alone.

Yea, wish that though, wish all, G.o.d's better beauty, grace.

_39 (The Soldier)_