A Poem by by G.M. Hopkins

Paul Mariani’s biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins details Hopkins’ life, poetry and faith in his book “Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life” (Viking, 2008, p. 149).  Hopkins was virtually unknown in his own lifetime. A convert to Catholicism in mid-Victorian England, he became a Jesuit priest. Hopkins poetry celebrates the glory, the beauty of God, even in the heart of a tragedy. He understood the fullness of being human, its joy and its limitations.
Mariani gives this introduction to Hopkins’ poem:
“And for a long moment we are outside the stress of history and in another rhythm altogether—God’s time, aeonic time, the time of the stars, of the sublimity of thunder, the beauty of the “dappled-with-damson west,” God’s infinitely pied beauty, kept constantly in being, and constantly refreshed. God there for the asking, if we will but ask, His mystery instressed and stressed upon us, if we will but look hard enough.”
                                                                                                         I kiss my hand
To the stars, lovely-asunder
Starlight, wafting him out of it; and
Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west;
Since, though he is under the world’s splendor and wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the day I meet him, and bless when I understand.
-G.M.Hopkins

Posted by Debra Classen at 4/13/2009 11:34 AM
Categories: Writing
Tags: Gerard Manley Hopkins
 

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