Gerard Manley Hopkins.

1844-1889

834   Heaven-Haven

A nun takes the veil

I HAVE desired to go
   Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
  And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
   Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
  And out of the swing of the sea.

835    Pied Beauty

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 pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
    And àall tràades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
            Praise him.

836    The Habit of Perfection

ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlàd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.

Be shellàd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.

And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

837    Felix Randal

FELIX RANDAL the farrier, O he is dead then? my duty
   all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-
  handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it and
   some
Fatal four disorders, flesh’d there, all contended?
Sickness broke him. Impatient he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tender’d to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he
    offended!

This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quench’d thy
   tears,
Thy tears that touch’d my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix
  Randal;