Peozie Hopkins

8/21/2019 Peozie Hopkins

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Pied Beauty (1877)

Complete Text

Glory be to God for dappled things

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches wings;

Landscape plotted and piecedfold, fallow, and plough;

And ll trdes, their gear and tackle and trim!All things counter, original, spare, strange;

"hate#er is fickle, freckled $who knows how%&

"ith swift, slow; sweet, sour; ada''le, dim;(e fathers-forth whose beauty is past change) *raise (im!

Summary

+he poem opens with an offering) Glory be to God for dappled things! .n the ne/t fi#e

lines, (opkins elaborates with e/amples of what things he means to include under this

rubric of dappled! (e includes the mottled white and blue colors of the sky, thebrinded $brindled or streaked& hide of a cow, and the patches of contrasting color on a

trout! +he chestnuts offer a slightly more comple/ image) "hen they fall they open to

re#eal the meaty interior normally concealed by the hard shell; they are compared to thecoals in a fire, black on the outside and glowing within! +he wings of finches are

multicolored, as is a patchwork of farmland in which sections look different according to

whether they are planted and green, fallow, or freshly plowed! +he final e/ample is of thetrades and acti#ities of man, with their rich di#ersity of materials and e0uipment!

.n the final fi#e lines, (opkins goes on to consider more closely the characteristics of

these e/amples he has gi#en, attaching moral 0ualities now to the concept of #ariety anddi#ersity that he has elaborated thus far mostly in terms of physical characteristics! +he

poem becomes an apology for these uncon#entional or strange things, things that might

not normally be #alued or thought beautiful! +hey are all, he a#ers, creations of God,which, in their multiplicity, point always to the unity and permanence of (is power and

inspire us to *raise (im!

Form

+his is one of (opkinss curtal $or curtailed& sonnets, in which he miniaturi'es the

traditional sonnet form by reducing the eight lines of the octa#e to si/ $here two tercetsrhymingABC ABC& and shortening the si/ lines of the sestet to four and a half! +his

alteration of the sonnet form is 0uite fitting for a poem ad#ocating originality and

contrariness! +he strikingly musical repetition of sounds throughout the poem $dappled,stipple, tackle, fickle, freckled, ada''le, for e/ample& enacts the creati#e act
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the poem glorifies) the wea#ing together of di#erse things into a pleasing and coherent

whole!

Commentary

+his poem is a miniature or set-piece, and a kind of ritual obser#ance! .t begins and endswith #ariations on the mottoes of the 1esuit order $to the greater glory of God and

praise to God always&, which gi#e it a traditional fla#or, tempering the unorthodo/y of

its appreciations! +he parallelism of the beginning and end correspond to a largersymmetry within the poem) the first part $the shortened octa#e& begins with God and then

mo#es to praise his creations! +he last four-and-a-half lines re#erse this mo#ement,

beginning with the characteristics of things in the world and then tracing them back to afinal affirmation of God! +he delay of the #erb in this e/tended sentence makes this

return all the more satisfying when it comes; the long and list-like predicate, which

captures the multiplicity of the created world, at last yields in the penultimate line to a

striking #erb of creation $fathers-forth& and then leads us to acknowledge an absolute

sub2ect, God the 3reator! +he poem is thus a hymn of creation, praising God by praisingthe created world! .t e/presses the theological position that the great #ariety in the natural

world is a testimony to the perfect unity of God and the infinitude of (is creati#e power!.n the conte/t of a 4ictorian age that #alued uniformity, efficiency, and standardi'ation,

this theological notion takes on a tone of protest!

"hy does (opkins choose to commend dappled things in particular% +he first stan'a

would lead the reader to belie#e that their significance is an aesthetic one) .n showinghow contrasts and 2u/tapositions increase the richness of our surroundings, (opkins

describes #ariations in color and te/tureof the sensory! +he mention of the fresh-

firecoal chestnut-falls in the fourth line, howe#er, introduces a moral tenor to the list!

+hough the description is still physical, the idea of a nugget of goodness imprisonedwithin a hard e/terior in#ites a consideration of essential valuein a way that the speckles

on a cow, for e/ample, do not! +he image transcends the physical, implying how thephysical links to the spiritual and meditating on the relationship between body and soul!

Lines fi#e and si/ then ser#e to connect these musings to human life and acti#ity!

(opkins first introduces a landscape whose characteristics deri#e from mans alteration

$the fields&, and then includes trades, gear, tackle, and trim as di#erse items thatare man-made! 5ut he then goes on to include these things, along with the preceding list,

as part of Gods work!

(opkins does not refer e/plicitly to human beings themsel#es, or to the #ariations that

e/ist among them, in his catalogue of the dappled and di#erse! 5ut the ne/t section openswith a list of 0ualities $counter, original, spare, strange& which, though they doggedly

refer to things rather than people, cannot but be considered in moral terms as well;

(opkinss own life, and particularly his poetry, had at the time been described in those#ery terms! "ith fickle and freckled in the eighth line, (opkins introduces a moral

and an aesthetic 0uality, each of which would con#entionally con#ey a negati#e

2udgment, in order to fold e#en the base and the ugly back into his worshipful in#entoryof Gods gloriously pied creation!


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The Windhover

Complete Text

+o 3hrist our Lord

. caught this morning mornings minion, king-dom of daylights dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

6f the rolling le#el underneath him steady air, and striding

(igh there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing.n his ecstasy7 then off, off forth on swing,

As a skates heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend) the hurl and gliding

8ebuffed the big wind! 9y heart in hiding:tirred for a bird,the achie#e of, the mastery of the thing7

5rute beauty and #alour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

5uckle7 A< the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion+imes told lo#elier, more dangerous, 6 my che#alier7

o wonder of it) sheer plod makes plough down sillion:hine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themsel#es, and gash gold-#ermillion!

Summary

+he windho#er is a bird with the rare ability to ho#er in the air, essentially flying in placewhile it scans the ground in search of prey! +he poet describes how he saw $or caught&

one of these birds in the midst of its ho#ering! +he bird strikes the poet as the darling$minion& of the morning, the crown prince $dauphin& of the kingdom of daylight,

drawn by the dappled colors of dawn! .t rides the air as if it were on horseback, mo#ingwith steady control like a rider whose hold on the rein is sure and firm! .n the poets

imagination, the windho#er sits high and proud, tightly reined in, wings 0ui#ering and

tense! .ts motion is controlled and suspended in an ecstatic moment of concentratedenergy! +hen, in the ne/t moment, the bird is off again, now like an ice skater balancing

forces as he makes a turn! +he bird, first matching the winds force in order to stay still,

now rebuff=s> the big wind with its forward propulsion! At the same moment, the poetfeels his own heart stir, or lurch forward out of hiding, as it weremo#ed by the

achie#e of, the mastery of the birds performance!

+he opening of the sestet ser#es as both a further elaboration on the birds mo#ement andan in2unction to the poets own heart! +he beauty, #alour, and act $like air,

pride, and plume& here buckle! 5uckle is the #erb here; it denotes either a

fastening $like the buckling of a belt&, a coming together of these different parts of acreatures being, or an ac0uiescent collapse $like the buckling of the knees&, in which


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all parts subordinate themsel#es into some larger purpose or cause! .n either case, a

unification takes place! At the moment of this integration, a glorious fire issues forth, of

the same order as the glory of 3hrists life and crucifi/ion, though not as grand!

Form

+he confusing grammatical structures and sentence order in this sonnet contribute to its

difficulty, but they also represent a masterful use of language! (opkins blends and

confuses ad2ecti#es, #erbs, and sub2ects in order to echo his theme of smooth merging)the birds perfect immersion in the air, and the fact that his self and his action are

inseparable! ote, too, how important the -ing ending is to the poems rhyme scheme;

it occurs in #erbs, ad2ecti#es, and nouns, linking the different parts of the sentencestogether in an intense unity! A great number of #erbs are packed into a short space of

lines, as (opkins tries to nail down with as much descripti#e precision as possible the

e/act character of the birds motion!

+he "indho#er is written in sprung rhythm, a meter in which the number of accentsin a line are counted but the number of syllables does not matter! +his techni0ue allows

(opkins to #ary the speed of his lines so as to capture the birds pausing and racing!

Listen to the ho#ering rhythm of the rolling le#el underneath him steady air, and the

arched brightness of and striding high there! +he poem slows abruptly at the end,pausing in awe to reflect on 3hrist!

Commentary

+his poem follows the pattern of so many of (opkinss sonnets, in that a sensuous

e/perience or description leads to a set of moral reflections! *art of the beauty of the

poem lies in the way (opkins integrates his masterful description of a birds physical featwith an account of his own hearts response at the end of the first stan'a! (owe#er, the

sestet has pu''led many readers because it seems to di#erge so widely from the materialintroduced in the octa#e! At line nine, the poem shifts into the present tense, away from

the recollection of the bird! +he horse-and-rider metaphor with which (opkins depicted

the windho#ers motion now gi#e way to the phrase my che#aliera traditional

9edie#al image of 3hrist as a knight on horseback, to which the poems subtitle $ordedication& gi#es the reader a clue! +he transition between octa#e and sestet comes with

the statement in lines ?-@@ that the natural $brute& beauty of the bird in flight is but a

spark in comparison with the glory of 3hrist, whose grandeur and spiritual power are abillion times told lo#elier, more dangerous!

+he first sentence of the sestet can read as either descripti#e or imperati#e, or both! +he

idea is that something glorious happens when a beings physical body, will, and action

are all brought into accordance with Gods will, culminating in the perfect self-e/pression! (opkins, reali'ing that his own heart was in hiding, or not fully committed

to its own purpose, draws inspiration from the birds perfectly self-contained, self-

reflecting action! 1ust as the ho#ering is the action most distincti#e and self-defining forthe windho#er, so spiritual stri#ing is mans most essential aspect! At moments when


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humans arri#e at the fullness of their moral nature, they achie#e something great! 5ut that

greatness necessarily pales in comparison with the ultimate act of self-sacrifice

performed by 3hrist, which ne#ertheless ser#es as our model and standard for our ownbeha#ior!

+he final tercet within the sestet declares that this phenomenon is not a wonder, butrather an e#eryday occurrencepart of what it means to be human! +his stri#ing, far

from e/hausting the indi#idual, ser#es to bring out his or her inner glowmuch as the

daily use of a metal plow, instead of wearing it down, actually polishes itcausing it tosparkle and shine! +he suggestion is that there is a glittering, luminous core to e#ery

indi#idual, which a concerted religious life can e/pose! +he subse0uent image is of

embers breaking open to re#eal a smoldering interior! (opkins words this image so as torelate the concept back to the 3rucifi/ion) +he #erb gash $which doubles for gush&

suggests the wounding of 3hrists body and the shedding of his gold-#ermilion blood!

od!" randeur (1877)

Complete Text

+he world is charged with the grandeur of God!

.t will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

.t gathers to a greatness, like the oo'e of oil3rushed! "hy do men then now not reck his rod%

Generations ha#e trod, ha#e trod, ha#e trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears mans smudge and shares mans smell) the soil.s bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod!

And for all this, nature is ne#er spent;

+here li#es the dearest freshness deep down things;And though the last lights off the black "est went

6h, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs

5ecause the (oly Ghost o#er the bent"orld broods with warm breast and with ah7 bright wings!

Summary

+he first four lines of the octa#e $the first eight-line stan'a of an .talian sonnet& describe a

natural world through which Gods presence runs like an electrical current, becomingmomentarily #isible in flashes like the refracted glintings of light produced by metal foil

when rumpled or 0uickly mo#ed! Alternati#ely, Gods presence is a rich oil, a kind of sap

that wells up to a greatness when tapped with a certain kind of patient pressure! Gi#en

these clear, strong proofs of Gods presence in the world, the poet asks how it is thathumans fail to heed $reck& (is di#ine authority $his rod&!
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+he second 0uatrain within the octa#e describes the state of contemporary human life

the blind repetiti#eness of human labor, and the sordidness and stain of toil and trade!

+he landscape in its natural state reflects God as its creator; but industry and theprioriti'ation of the economic o#er the spiritual ha#e transformed the landscape, and

robbed humans of their sensiti#ity to the those few beauties of nature still left! +he shoes

people wear se#er the physical connection between our feet and the earth they walk on,symboli'ing an e#er-increasing spiritual alienation from nature!

+he sestet $the final si/ lines of the sonnet, enacting a turn or shift in argument& asserts

that, in spite of the fallenness of (opkinss contemporary 4ictorian world, nature does

not cease offering up its spiritual indices! *ermeating the world is a deep freshness thattestifies to the continual renewing power of Gods creation! +his power of renewal is

seen in the way morning always waits on the other side of dark night! +he source of this

constant regeneration is the grace of a God who broods o#er a seemingly lifeless worldwith the patient nurture of a mother hen! +his final image is one of God guarding the

potential of the world and containing within (imself the power and promise of rebirth!

"ith the final e/clamation $ah7 bright wings& (opkins suggests both an awed intuitionof the beauty of Gods grace, and the 2oyful suddenness of a hatchling bird emerging out

of Gods lo#ing incubation!

Form

+his poem is an .talian sonnetit contains fourteen lines di#ided into an octa#e and a

sestet, which are separated by a shift in the argumentati#e direction of the poem! +hemeter here is not the sprung rhythm for which (opkins is so famous, but it does #ary

somewhat from the iambic pentameter lines of the con#entional sonnet! For e/ample,

(opkins follows stressed syllable with stressed syllable in the fourth line of the poem,

bolstering the urgency of his 0uestion) "hy do men then now not reck his rod%:imilarly, in the ne/t line, the hea#y, falling rhythm of ha#e trod, ha#e trod, ha#e trod,

coming after the 0uick lilt of generations, recreates the sound of plodding footsteps instriking onomatopoeia!

Commentary

+he poem begins with the surprising metaphor of Gods grandeur as an electric force!

+he figure suggests an undercurrent that is not always seen, but which builds up a tension

or pressure that occasionally flashes out in ways that can be both brilliant and dangerous!+he optical effect of shook foil is one e/ample of this brilliancy! +he image of the oil

being pressed out of an oli#e represents another kind of richness, where saturation and

built-up pressure e#entually culminate in a salubrious o#erflow! +he image of electricitymakes a subtle return in the fourth line, where the rod of Gods punishing power calls

to mind the lightning rod in which e/cess electricity in the atmosphere will occasionally

flame out! (opkins carefully chooses this comple/ of images to link the secular andscientific to mystery, di#inity, and religious tradition! lectricity was an area of much

scientific interest during (opkinss day, and is an e/ample of a phenomenon that had

long been taken as an indication of di#ine power but which was now e/plained in


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naturalistic, rational terms! (opkins is defiantly affirmati#e in his assertion that Gods

work is still to be seen in nature, if men will only concern themsel#es to look! 8efusing to

ignore the disco#eries of modern science, he takes them as further e#idence of Godsgrandeur rather than a challenge to it! (opkinss awe at the optical effects of a piece of

foil attributes re#elatory power to a man-made ob2ect; gold-leaf foil had also been used in

recent influential scientific e/periments! +he oli#e oil, on the other hand, is an ancientsacramental substance, used for centuries for food, medicine, lamplight, and religious

purposes! +his oil thus traditionally appears in all aspects of life, much as God suffuses

all branches of the created uni#erse! 9oreo#er, the slowness of its oo'ing contrasts withthe 0uick electric flash; the method of its e/traction implies such spiritual 0ualities as

patience and faith! $5y including this description (opkins may ha#e been implicitly

critici'ing the #iolence and rapaciousness with which his contemporaries drilled

petroleum oil to fuel industry!& +hus both the images of the foil and the oli#e oil bespeakan all-permeating di#ine presence that re#eals itself in intermittent flashes or droplets of

brilliance!

(opkinss 0uestion in the fourth line focuses his readers on the present historicalmoment; in considering why men are no longer God-fearing, the emphasis is on now!

+he answer is a comple/ one! +he second 0uatrain contains an indictment of the way a

cultures neglect of God translates into a neglect of the en#ironment! 5ut it also suggests

that the abuses of pre#ious generations are partly to blame; they ha#e soiled and searedour world, further hindering our ability to access the holy! Bet the sestet affirms that, in

spite of the interdependent deterioration of human beings and the earth, God has not

withdrawn from either! (e possesses an infinite power of renewal, to which theregenerati#e natural cycles testify! +he poem reflects (opkinss con#iction that the

physical world is like a book written by God, in which the attenti#e person can always

detect signs of a bene#olent authorship, and which can help mediate human beings

contemplation of this Author!

Theme"# $oti%" and Sym&ol"

Theme"

The Manifestation of God in Nature

(opkins used poetry to e/press his religious de#otion, drawing his images from the

natural world! (e found nature inspiring and de#eloped his theories of inscape and

instress to e/plore the manifestation of God in e#ery li#ing thing! According to these

theories, the recognition of an ob2ects uni0ue identity, which was bestowed upon thatob2ect by God, brings us closer to 3hrist! :imilarly, the beauty of the natural worldand

our appreciation of that beautyhelps us worship God! 9any poems, including(urrahing in (ar#est and +he "indho#er, begin with the speaker praising an aspect

of nature, which then leads the speaker into a consideration of an aspect of God or 3hrist!

For instance, in +he :tarlight ight, the speaker urges readers to notice the mar#els of

the night sky and compares the sky to a structure, which houses 3hrist, his mother, andthe saints! +he stars link to 3hristianity makes them more beautiful!


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The Regenerative Power of Nature

(opkinss early poetry praises nature, particularly natures uni0ue ability to regenerateand re2u#enate! +hroughout his tra#els in ngland and .reland, (opkins witnessed the

detrimental effects of industriali'ation on the en#ironment, including pollution,urbani'ation, and diminished rural landscapes! "hile he lamented these effects, he alsobelie#ed in natures power of regeneration, which comes from God! .n Gods

Grandeur, the speaker notes the wellspring that runs through nature and through

humans! "hile (opkins ne#er doubted the presence of God in nature, he becameincreasingly depressed by late nineteenth-century life and began to doubt natures ability

to withstand human destruction! (is later poems, the so-called terrible sonnets, focus on

images of death, including the har#est and #ultures picking at prey! 8ather than depict theglory of natures rebirth, these poems depict the deaths that must occur in order for the

cycle of nature to continue! +hou Art .ndeed 1ust, Lord $@CC?& uses parched roots as a

metaphor for despair) the speaker begs 3hrist to help him because 3hrists lo#e will

re2u#enate him, 2ust as water helps re2u#enate dying foliage!

$oti%"

Colors

According to (opkinss theory of inscape, all li#ing things ha#e a constantly shifting

design or pattern that gi#es each ob2ect a uni0ue identity! (opkins fre0uently uses colorto describe these inscapes! *ied 5eauty praises God for gi#ing e#ery ob2ect a distinct

#isual pattern, from sunlight as multicolored as a cow to the beauty of birds wings and

freshly plowed fields! .ndeed, the wordpiedmeans ha#ing splotches of two or more

colors! .n (urrahing in (ar#est, the speaker describes a'ourous hung hills $?& thatare #ery-#iolet-sweet $@D&! lsewhere, the use of color to describe nature becomes

more complicated, as in :pring! 8ather than 2ust call the birds eggs blue, the speaker

describes them as resembling pieces of the sky and thus demonstrates the interlockingorder of ob2ects in the natural world! .n +he "indho#er, the speaker yokes ad2ecti#es

to con#ey the peculiar, precise beauty of the bird in flightand to con#ey the idea that

natures colors are so magnificent that they re0uire new combinations of words in orderto be imagined!

Ecstatic, Transcendent Moments

9any of (opkinss poems feature an ecstatic outcry, a moment at which the speakere/presses his transcendence of the real world into the spiritual world! +he words ah, o,

and ohusually signal the point at which the poem mo#es from a description of naturesbeauty to an o#ert e/pression of religious sentiment! 5insey *oplars $@CE?&, a poem

about the destruction of a forest, begins with a description of the downed trees but

switches dramatically to a lamentation about the human role in the de#astation; (opkinssignals the switch by not only beginning a new stan'a but also by beginning the line with

6 $?&! (opkins also uses e/clamation points and appositi#es to articulate ecstasy) in


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3arrion 3omfort, the speaker concludes with two cries to 3hrist, one enclosed in

parentheses and punctuated with an e/clamation point and the other punctuated with a

period! +he words and the punctuation alert the reader to the instant at which the poemshifts from secular concerns to religious feeling!

Bold Musicality

+o e/press inscape and instress, (opkins e/perimented with rhythm and sound to create

sprung rhythm, a distinct musicality that resembles the patterns of natural speech innglish! +he fle/ible meter allowed (opkins to con#ey the fast, swooping falcon in +he

"indho#er and the slow mo#ement of hea#y clouds in (urrahing in (ar#est! +o

indicate how his lines should be read aloud, (opkins often marked words with acuteaccents, as in As ingfishers 3atch Fire and :pring and Fall! 'lliteration, or the

2u/taposition of similar sounds, links form with content, as in this line from Gods

Grandeur) And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil $&! .n the act ofrepeating red, our mouths make a long, low sound that resembles the languid

mo#ements of humans made tired from factory labor! lsewhere, the alliterati#e linesbecome another way of worshiping the di#ine because the sounds roll and bump together

in pleasure! :pring begins, othing is so beautiful as :pring H "hen weeds, inwheels, shoot long and lo#ely and lush $@IJ&!

Sym&ol"

Birds

5irds appear throughout (opkinss poetry, fre0uently as stand-ins for God and 3hrist! .n

+he "indho#er, a poem dedicated to 3hrist, the speaker watches a falcon flying

through the sky and finds traces of 3hrist in its flight path! +he beauty of the bird causesthe speaker to reflect on the beauty of 3hrist because the speaker sees a di#ine imprint on

all li#ing things! :imilarly, As ingfishers 3atch Fire meditates on the innate beha#iorsand patterns of beings in the uni#erse) the inscape of birds manifests in their flights, much

as the inscape of stone manifests in the sound of flowing water! 3hrist appears

e#erywhere in these inscape manifestations! .n 3hristian iconography, birds ser#e asreminders that there is life away from earth, in hea#enand the (oly Ghost is often

represented as a do#e! Gods Grandeur portrays the (oly Ghost literally, as a bird big

enough to brood o#er the entire world, protecting all its inhabitants!

Fire

(opkins uses images of fire to symboli'e the passion behind religious feeling, as well as

to symboli'e God and 3hrist! .n Gods Grandeur, (opkins compares the glory of Godand the beautiful bounty of his world to fire, a miraculous presence that warms and

beguiles those nearby! (e links fire and 3hrist in +he "indho#er, as the speaker sees a

flame burst at the e/act moment in which he reali'es that the falcon contains 3hrist!

Likewise, As ingfishers 3atch Fire uses the phrase catch fire as a metaphor for the
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birds manifestation of the di#ine imprint, or inscape, in their natural beha#ior! .n that

poem too, the dragonflies draw flame $@&, or create light, to show their distinct

identities as li#ing things! atures firelightningappears in other poems as a way ofdemonstrating the innate signs of God and 3hrist in the natural world) God and 3hrist

appear throughout nature, regardless of whether humans are there to witness their

appearances!

Trees

+rees appear in (opkinss poems to dramati'e the earthly effects of time and to show the

detrimental effects of humans on nature! .n :pring and Fall, the changing seasons

become a metaphor for maturation, aging, and the life cycle, as the speaker e/plainsdeath to a young girl) all mortal things die, 2ust as all deciduous trees lose their lea#es! .n

5insey *oplars, the speaker mourns the loss of a forest from human destruction, then

urges readers to be mindful of damaging the natural world! 3utting down a tree becomesa metaphor for the larger destruction being enacted by nineteenth-century urbani'ation

and industriali'ation! +rees help make an area more beautiful, but they do not manifestGod or 3hrist in the same way as animate ob2ects, such as animals or humans!

Sprin and Fall (188)

Complete Text

+o a young child

9argaret, are you grie#ing

6#er Goldengro#e unlea#ing%

Lea#es, like the things of man, you"ith your fresh thoughts care for, can you%

Ah7 as the heart grows older

.t will come to such sights colder5y and by, nor spare a sigh

+hough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep know why!

ow no matter, child, the name):orrows springs are the same!

or mouth had, no nor mind, e/pressed

"hat heart heard of, ghost guessed)

.t is the blight man was born for,

.t is 9argaret you mourn for!

Summary

+he poem opens with a 0uestion to a child) 9argaret, are you grie#ing H 6#erGoldengro#e unlea#ing% Goldengro#e, a place whose name suggests an idyllic play-

world, is unlea#ing, or losing its lea#es as winter approaches! And the child, with her


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fresh thoughts, cares about the lea#es as much as about the things of man! +he

speaker reflects that age will alter this innocent response, and that later whole worlds of

forest will lie in leafless disarray $leafmeal, like piecemeal& without arousing9argarets sympathy! +he child will weep then, too, but for a more conscious reason!

(owe#er, the source of this knowing sadness will be the same as that of her childish grief

for sorrows springs are the same! +hat is, though neither her mouth nor her mindcan yet articulate the fact as clearly as her adult self will, 9argaret is already mourning

o#er her own mortality!

Form

+his poem has a lyrical rhythm appropriate for an address to a child! .n fact, it appears

that (opkins began composing a musical accompaniment to the #erse, though no copy of

it remains e/tant! +he lines form couplets and each line has four beats, like thecharacteristic ballad line, though they contain an irregular number of syllables! +he sing-

song effect this creates in the first eight lines is complicated into something more uneasy

in the last se#en; the rhymed triplet at the center of the poem creates a pi#ot for thischange! (opkins sprung rhythm meter $see the Analysissection of this :parkote for

more on sprung rhythm& lets him orchestrate the 2u/tapositions of stresses in unusual

ways! (e sometimes incorporates pauses, like musical rests, in places where we woulde/pect a syllable to separate two stresses $for e/ample, after 9argaret in the first line

and Lea#es in the third&! At other times he lets the stresses stand together for emphasis,

as in will weep and ghost guessed; the alliteration here contributes to the emphatic

slowing of the rhythm at these most earnest and dramatic points in the poem!

Commentary

+he title of the poem in#ites us to associate the young girl, 9argaret, in her freshness,

innocence, and directness of emotion, with the springtime! (opkinss choice of the

American word fall rather than the 5ritish autumn is deliberate; it links the idea ofautumnal decline or decay with the biblical Fall of man from grace! +hat primordial

episode of loss initiated human mortality and suffering; in contrast, the life of a young

child, as (opkins suggests $and as so many poets ha#e before himparticularly the8omantics&, appro/imates the denic state of man before the Fall! 9argaret li#es in a

state of harmony with nature that allows her to relate to her paradisal Goldengro#e with

the same sympathy she bears for human beings or, put more cynically, for the things of

man!

9argaret e/periences an emotional crisis when confronted with the fact of death and

decay that the falling lea#es represent! "hat interests the speaker about her grief is that it

represents such a singular $and precious& phase in the de#elopment of a human beings

understanding about death and loss; only because 9argaret has already reached a certainle#el of maturity can she feel sorrow at the onset of autumn! +he speaker knows what she

does not, namely, that as she grows older she will continue to e/perience this same grief,

but with more self-consciousness about its real meaning $you will weep, and know
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why&, and without the same mediating $and admittedly endearing& sympathy for

inanimate ob2ects $nor spare a sigh, H +hough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie&! +his

eighth line is perhaps one of the most beautiful in all of (opkinss work) +he wordworlds suggests a de#astation and decline that spreads without end, well beyond the

bounds of the little Goldengro#e that seems so #ast and significant to a childs

perception! Loss is basic to the human e/perience, and it is absolute and all-consuming!"anwood carries the suggestion of pallor and sickness in the word wan, and also

pro#ides a nice description of the fading colors of the earth as winter dormancy

approaches! +he word leafmeal, which (opkins coined by analogy with piecemeal,e/presses with poignancy the sense of wholesale ha#oc with which the sight of strewn

fallen lea#es might strike a nai#e and sensiti#e mind!

.n the final, and hea#iest, mo#ement of the poem, (opkins goes on to identify what this

sorrow is that 9argaret feels and will, he assures us, continue to feel, although indifferent ways! +he statement in line @@ that :orrows springs are the same suggests

not only that all sorrows ha#e the same source, but also that 9argaret, who is associated

with springtime, represents a stage all people go through in coming to understandmortality and loss! "hat is so remarkable about this stage is that while the mouth

cannot say what the grief is for, nor the mind e#en articulate it silently, a kind of

understanding ne#ertheless materiali'es! .t is a whisper to the heart, something guessed

at by the ghost or spirita purely intuiti#e notion of the fact that all grie#ing pointsback to the self) to ones own suffering of losses, and ultimately to ones own mortality!

+hough the narrators tone toward the child is tender and sympathetic, he does not try to

comfort her! or are his reflections really addressed to her because they are beyond her

le#el of understanding! "e suspect that the poet has at some point gone through the sameruminations that he now obser#es in 9argaret; and that his once-intuiti#e grief then led to

these more conscious reflections! (er way of confronting loss is emotional and #ague; hisis philosophical, poetical, and generali'ing, and we see that this is his more matureandcolderway of likewise mourning for his own mortality!

Bin"ey Poplar" (187*)

Complete Text

9y aspens dear, whose airy cages 0uelled,

Kuelled or 0uenched in lea#es the leaping sun,

All felled, felled, are all felled;

6f a fresh and following folded rankot spared, not one

+hat dandled a sandalled:hadow that swam or sank

6n meadow and ri#er and wind-wandering weed-winding bank!

6 if we but knew what we do"hen we del#e or hew

(ack and rack the growing green7


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:ince country is so tender

+o touch, her being so slender,

+hat, like this sleek and seeing ball5ut a prick will make no eye at all,

"here we, e#en where we mean

+o mend her we end her,"hen we hew or del#e)

After-comers cannot guess the beauty been!

+en or twel#e, only ten or twel#e:trokes of ha#oc unsel#e

+he sweet especial scene,

8ural scene, a rural scene,

:weet especial rural scene!

Summary

+he poet mourns the cutting of his aspens dear, trees whose delicate beauty resided notonly in their appearance, but in the way they created airy cages to tame the sunlight!

+hese lo#ely trees, (opkins laments, ha#e all been felled! (e compares them to anarmy of soldiers obliterated! (e remembers mournfully the way they their sandalled

shadows played along the winding bank where ri#er and meadow met!

(opkins grie#es o#er the wholesale destruction of the natural world, which takes place

because people fail to reali'e the implications of their actions! +o del#e or hew $dig, as

in mining, or chop down trees& is to treat the earth too harshly, for country is somethingso tender that the least damage can change it irre#ocably! +he poet offers as an analogy

the pricking of an eyeball, an organ whose mechanisms are subtle and powerful, though

the tissues are infinitely delicate) to prick it e#en slightly changes it completely from

what it was to something unrecogni'able $and useless&! .ndeed, e#en an action that ismeant to be beneficial can affect the landscape in this way, (opkins says! +he earth held

beauties before our time that after-comers will ha#e no idea of, since they are now lost

fore#er! .t takes so little $only ten or twel#e strokes& to unsel#e the landscape, or alterit so completely that it is no longer itself!

Form

+his poem is written in sprung rhythm, the inno#ati#e metric form de#eloped by

(opkins! .n sprung rhythm the number of accents in a line are counted, but the number ofsyllables are not! +he result, in this poem, is that (opkins is able to group accented

syllables together, creating striking onomatopoeic effects! .n the third line, for e/ample,

the hea#y recurrence of the accented words all and felled strike the ear like the blows

of an a/ on the tree trunks! (owe#er, in the final three lines the repetition of phrasesworks differently! (ere the techni0ue achie#es a more wistful and song-like 0uality; the

chanted phrase sweet especial rural scene e#okes the numb incomprehension of grief

and the unwillingness of a berea#ed heart to let go! +his poem offers a good e/ample of


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the way (opkins chooses, alters, and in#ents words with a #iew to the sonorousness of

his poems! (ere, he uses dandled $instead of a more familiar word such as dangled&

to create a rhyme with sandalled and to echo the consonants in the final three lines ofthe stan'a!

Commentary

+his poem is a dirge for a landscape that (opkins had known intimately while studying at

6/ford! (opkins here recapitulates the ideas e/pressed in some of his earlier poemsabout the indi#iduality of the natural ob2ect and the idea that its #ery being is a kind of

e/pression! (opkins refers to this e/pression as sel#ing, and maintains that this

sel#ing is ultimately always an e/pression of God, his creati#e power! +he wordappears here $as unsel#es&, and also in As ingfishers 3atch Fire!(ere, (opkins

emphasi'es the fragility of the self or the sel#ing) #en a slight alteration can cause a

thing to cease to be what it most essentially is! .n describing the beauty of the aspens,

(opkins focuses on the way they interact with and affect the space and atmosphere

around them, changing the 0uality of the light and contributing to the elaborate naturalpatterning along the bank of the ri#er! 5ecause of these interrelations, felling a gro#e not

only eradicates the trees, but also unsel#es the whole countryside!

+he poem likens the line of trees to a rank of soldiers! +he military image implies that theindustrial de#elopment of the countryside e0uals a kind of $too often unrecogni'ed&

warfare! +he natural cur#es and winding of the ri#er bank contrast with the rigid linearity

of man-made arrangements of ob2ects, a rigidity implied by the soldiers marching information! (opkins points out how the narrow-minded priorities of an age bent on

standardi'ation and regularity contributes to an obliteration of beauty! ature allows both

lines and cur#es, and lets them interplay in infinitely comple/ and subtle ways; the line of

trees, while also straight and orderly like soldiers, ne#ertheless follows the cur#e of theri#er, so that theirrank is following and folded, caught up in intricate interrelations

rather than being merely rigid, efficient, and abstract! .ts shadows, which are cross-hatched like sandal straps and constantly changing, offer another e/ample of the

patterning of nature! +his passage e/presses something of what (opkins means by the

word inscape) the notion of inscape refers both to an ob2ects perfect indi#idualism

and to the ob2ects possession of an internal order go#erning its sel#ing and connectingit to other ob2ects in the world! $For more on (opkinss notion of inscape, see the

commentary on As ingfishers 3atch Fire,


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presence! +he narrowness of the industrial mindset loses sight of these wider

implications! (opkins puts this blindness in a biblical conte/t with his echoes of 1esus

phrase at his own crucifi/ion) Father forgi#e them, for they know not what they do!

Carrion Com%ort (188+,7)

Complete Text

ot, .ll not, carrion comfort,


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+hen the poet attempts an answer! +he tempest was actually a har#est wind, shucking

the chaff from the wheat to e/pose the kernels of goodness concealed within! .n patient

acceptance of di#ine #engeance, the poet has kissed the rod of Gods punishmentorrather, he corrects himself, he has kissed the handthat heldthat rod! :ince then he has

suffered toil and coil, yet the act of acceptance has also brought a resurgence of

optimism, mounting gradually to a cheer! 5ut this word prompts another round of0uestioning $3heer whom though%&; now that he knows that Gods rough treatment of

him was for his own good, should he now applaud God for ha#ing treated him so% 6r

does he congratulate himselffor ha#ing struggled, for ha#ing met God directly% 6r both%+he speaker, howe#er far he has come from the brink of despair, is perhaps still trying to

come to terms with that dark year of suffering in which he struggled with God!

Commentary

(opkins wrote this sonnet at a time when he had 2ust emerged from a long period of

depression and inner anguish! +he poem is carefully designed to surprise the reader and

dramati'e the moment of recognition that the speaker e/periences in coming to termswith his own spiritual struggle! +he interpretation of the poem depends in large measure

on how one reads the transitions between the poems three sections $the first 0uatrain, thesecond 0uatrain, and the sestet&! .n particular, ascertaining the poems chronology can be

troubling, in part because (opkins withholds an important piece of chronological

information until line @D, when the poem first shifts into the past tense! .n the secondstan'a, there is a disturbing immediacy in the poets urgent protests against Gods

unrelenting persecution; only in line @D does the poet re#eal that the trial has already

passed! .n light of this recognition, the reader must ree#aluate the preceding lines! "hat

is the order of cause and effect% "hy does (opkins use the present tense for the paste#ents of the poem%

+he order of the e#ents described in the first two 0uatrains seems to be re#ersed in the

telling! *resumably, the struggle against despair in lines one through four pro#ided ase0uel to the #iolence depicted in lines fi#e through eight! Bet the fact that this second

0uatrain is written in interrogati#e form brings it into the present of the poem! .t both tells

of past e#ents and asks about their meaning from a retrospecti#e #antage $as if from the

present&! .n this interpretation, the poem contains two different narrati#e linessuperimposed on one another! +he first deals with a now done crisis of suffering and

resistance, in which the poet struggled in futility against God! +he second plot takes

place later than the first but is also, one hopes, nearing consummation #ia the thinkingprocesses that ha#e contributed to the making of the poem itself! +his plot is the poets

attempt to understand the initial crisisand it is this plot that takes place in the present

of the poem! .n this latter narrati#e, the content of the second 0uatrain doestemporallyfollow that of the first; it constitutes the $partly self-pitying& 0uestions that still remain

e#en after the poet has decided not to gi#e up hope! +hese four lines mark the problem of

understanding still at hand for the poet, a problem that will then be resol#ed in the sestet!

+here, the poet abandons the tone of impassioned self-protection and seeks theologicale/planations for suffering and spiritual struggle!


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Another chronological ambiguity centers on line @D! 6ne might assume that the toil and

coil (opkins has e/perienced since he kissed the rod are precisely this struggle for

understanding, after the e/perience of complete ab2ection before God forced his spiritinto submission! .t is out of that second struggle, in which he acknowledges both Gods

and his own roles in the earlier, more wrenching struggle, that his heart is able to reco#er!

6n the other hand, we might read the phrase since $seems& . kissed the rod differently!.n light of that pu''ling parenthetical seems, one might decide that all the #iolence of

the second 0uatrain has taken place after (opkins thought he had made his peace with

God! .n that case, the cru/ of the theological problem would lie with the inscrutability ofa God who would inflict such suffering on e#en (opkins, a priest who had de#oted his

life to Gods ser#ice!

+here is also a way of reading the chronology of the poem more continuously! +he

punishments in the second 0uatrain are perhaps inflicted by God in retaliation against the

poets $insufficient& first resolution against despair! .n this reading, the poem would

imply that the conclusions in the first stan'a are unacceptable to Godthe decision tonot choose not to be might seem willful and self-regarding, as compared to the humility

and prostration before Gods will at which the poet afterward arri#es! .n this reading, the

renewal of 0uestioning in the last lines might look like a further lapse, as the struggle forunderstanding continues in the poets own heart e#en though he ought to stand in total

acceptance of Gods will!

From the beginning, the poem works to contrast acti#e and passi#e beha#ior, and to

weigh the two against each other!

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Peozie Hopkins