The Lantern Out of Doors

Sometimes a lantern moves along the night, 

That interests our eyes. And who goes there? 

I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where, 

With, all down darkness wide, his wading light? 

Men go by me whom either beauty bright 

In mould* or mind or what not else makes rare: 

They rain against our much-thick and marsh air 

Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite. 

Death or distance soon consumes them: wind 

What most I may eye after, be in at the end 

I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.** 

Christ minds: Christ’s interest, what to avow or amend 

There, éyes them, heart wánts, care haúnts, foot fóllows kínd, 

Their ránsom, théir rescue, ánd first, fást, last friénd.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.; 1877

*Mould:  British English for "mold."  How a person is formed.  Here, people that catch your eye because they seem especially intelligent, attractive or well-formed.

**Even these attractive, special people die.  But Christ is always there, always following, always paying attention, always ransoming and rescuing those who die, always being their (and our) first, lasting and best Friend.

Poet's notes in his journal:  "I mean that the eye winds/ only in the sense that is focus or point of sight winds and that coincides with a point of the object and winds with that. For the object, a lantern passing further and further away and bearing now east now west of one right lined, is truly and properly described as winding."