Looking Backwards & Forwards at Hopkins

 

For this new year, I'm reviewing for you all the Gerard Manley Hopkins entries on this blog.  There are works by Hopkins himself, plus references to his work.  Hopkins was a 19th century English Jesuit poet.  He both modernized and stuck with old forms in his work. Enjoy, and Happy 2021!

"Pied Beauty" [Best known]

"God's Grandeur" [2nd best known]

"Spring & Fall"

"Peace"

"Spring"

"My Own Heart Let Me Have More Pity On"

"Moonrise"

"Patience"

"Easter"

"The Starlight Night"

"Music on the Wing"

Excerpt from "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection."

"Moonless Darkness Stands Between" [Christmas]

"He Hath Abolished the Old Drouth"

"May Magnificat"

Here is Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, reading "God's Grandeur":

Reading of "God's Grandeur"

Here's an original poem of mine, drawing from a line in God's Grandeur":

"Nature is Never Spent"

This is by a poetess who really admired Hopkins:

"A Song of Spring"

Here's a portrait of Hopkins, done in "icon" style:

Hopkins as Icon

Chokecherries, White Mountains of Arizona
October 2021

In May

The time that hints the coming leaf, 
 When buds are dropping chaff and scale,  
And, wafted from the greening vale,
Are pungent odors, keen as grief.

Now shad-bush wears a robe of white,  
And orchards hint a leafy screen; 
 While willows drop their veils of green
Above the limpid waters bright.

New songsters come with every morn, 
 And whippoorwill is overdue, 
 While spice bush gold is coined anew
Before her tardy leaves are born.

The cowslip now with radiant face  
Makes mimic sunshine in the shade, 
 Anemone is not afraid,
Although she trembles in her place.

Now adder's-tongue new gilds the mould*,
The ferns unroll their woolly coils,  
And honey-bee begins her toils
Where maple trees their fringe unfold.

The goldfinch dons his summer coat,  
The wild bee drones her mellow bass, 
 And butterflies of hardy race
In genial sunshine bask and float.

The Artist now is sketching in 
 The outlines of his broad design  
So soon to deepen line on line,
Till June and summer days begin.

Now Shadow soon will pitch her tent
Beneath the trees in grove and field,
And all the wounds of life be healed,
By orchard bloom and lilac scent.

--John Burroughs, 1837-1921

*"Mold" in British English.  Flowers are now adorning the ground, where before moldy leaf remnants lay