This year I've been memorizing poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. So far, I've memorized "To R.B.," "God's Grandeur," and "Pied Beauty." And this morning I finished my fourth, "The Sea and the Skylark":

On ear and ear two noises too old to end
Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore; 
With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar, 
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend. 

Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend, 
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score 
In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour 
And pelt music, till none ’s to spill nor spend. 

How these two shame this shallow and frail town! 
How ring right out our sordid turbid time, 
Being pure! We, life’s pride and cared-for crown, 
Have lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime: 

Our make and making break, are breaking, down 
To man’s last dust, drain fast towards man’s first slime.

I have been meditating lately on Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “Patience.” It's like the Lord sent it my way right when I needed it.

Patience, hard thing! The hard thing but to pray, 
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks 
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks; 
To do without, take tosses, and obey. 
Rare patience roots in these; and, these away, 
Nowhere. Natural heart’s ivy, Patience masks 
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks 
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day. 

We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills 
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills 
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so. 
And where is he who more and more distills 
Delicious kindness? — He is patient. Patience fills 
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know. 

This poem is complex, but it is wonderful for reflection, and honestly, I need its message right now. Here is it in my own words:

Patience is a hard thing. It is hard to ask God for patience. When we ask for patience, we ask for war; we ask for wounds. The tasks that build patience are wearying. It is wearying to do without. It is wearying to take the trials that patience gives us. It is wearying to simply obey. But it is only through these trials that the rare virtue of patience blooms. Without these trials, patience won’t grow. Patience is the ivy that grows over the ruins of our former goals and dreams. But that ivy basks in the sun, producing leaves and flowers. 

Yet patience is still hard, and in times of trial, we hear the clamor of our souls. Our hearts are vulnerable, and trials bruise them. Yet we ask God to bend our rebellious will to Himself even more. And what is the character of that God? He uses these trials to show us His kindness. He is patient. It is patience that fills God’s honeycombs, but that sweet honey is produced in slow ways that we must submit to.

April and I are finding that this is a difficult stage of life. It’s not easy to raise three children in today's world and today's economy. It’s not easy to commit to the sacrifices of keeping three daughters in a Christian school, of working in ministry, of dealing with difficult trials that have been sent our way, of trying to live as the Lord has directed.

But it’s a blessing to know that God is patient with us as we learn. Slowly but surely, He molds us to the image of His Son. And although that process seems to be very, very slow, we trust that someday the reward will be sweet.

But in the meanwhile, I need patience.

I have a new post on Humane Pursuits today. It's about Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "Hurrahing in Harvest."

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.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Heaven-Haven"

Hopkins: Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed both the poems and the journals. The journals show that Hopkins was a detailed observer of nature, of words, of people. He was fascinated by quirks of all kinds--quirky words, quirky accents, quirky trees, quirky cloud formations . . . To Hopkins, every thing, every single object in nature, had a unique place in God's design and a unique role in showing His glory. Every thing "selves." That is, every thing points to God just by being what it is. This is reflected in his poem "God's Grandeur":

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 áll trádes, 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.

I love those last two lines--a contrast between the infinite variety of nature and the changelessness of God. The last line, abruptly short, shows that after considering these things, the poet is speechless.

Of course, Hopkins' poetry is amazing. I have been familiar with some of his poems since college, but this book introduced me to a lot of new ones. I also read "The Wreck of the Deutschland" in full for the first time. This poem especially shows Hopkins' complex style, in which he uses original rhythms and original words. Hopkins' style reflects the inifluence of Anglo-Saxon poetry--a lot of alliteration, and an attention to not the number of total syllables in a line, but the number of stressed syllables. The syntax is frequently convoluted. It takes some work for the reader, but it is very rewarding, especially when he points us to the glory of God. For one more taste of his style, here's the last part of "The Wreck of the Deutschland":

Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness
of us, be a crimson-cresseted east,
More brightening her, rare-dear Britain, as his reign rolls,
Pride, rose, prince, hero of us, high-priest,
Our heart's charity's hearth's fire, our thoughts'
chivalry's throng's Lord.

View all my reviews

It is not only prayer that gives God glory but work. Smiting on an anvil, sawing a beam, whitewashing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in his grace you do it as your duty. To go to communion worthily gives God great glory, but to take food in thankfulness and temperance gives him glory too. To lift up the hands in prayer gives God glory, but a man with a dungfork in his hand, a woman with a sloppail, give him glory too. He is so great that all things give him glory if you mean they should. So then, my brethren, live.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Principle or Foundation"

From a journal entry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1871:

What you look at hard seems to look hard at you, hence the true and false instress of nature. One day early in March when long streamers [clouds] were rising from over Kemble End one large flake loop-shaped, not a streamer but belonging to the string, moving too slowly to be seen, seemed to cap and fill the zenith with a white shire of cloud. I looked long up at it till the tall height and the beauty of the scaping--regularly curled knots springing if I remember from fine stems, like foliation in wood or stone--had strongly grown on me. It changed beautiful changes, growing more into ribs and one stretch of running into branching like coral. Unless you refresh the mind from time to time you cannot always remember or believe how deep the inscape of things is.

Poems and Prose, 210-11

A journal entry from Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Sept. 24: First saw the Northern Lights. My eye was caught by beams of light and dark very like the crown of rays the sun makes behind a cloud. At first I thought of silvery cloud until I saw that these were more luminous and did not dim the clearness of the stars in the Bear. They rose slightly radiating thrown out from the earthline. Then I saw soft pulses of light one after another rise and pass upwards arched in shape but waveringly and with the arch broken. They seemed to float, not following the warp of the sphere as falling stars look to do but free though concentrical with it. This busy working of nature wholly independent of the earth and seeming to go on in a strain of time not reckoned by our reckoning of days and years but simpler and as if correcting the preoccupation of the world by being preoccupied with and appealing to and dated to the day of judgment was like a new witness to God and filled me with delightful fear.

Hopkins, Poems and Prose, 204-5

I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman's mind to be more like my own than any other man's living. As he is a very great scoundrel this is not a pleasant confession. And this also makes me the more desirous to read him and the more determined that I will not.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins in a letter to Robert Bridges, 18 October 1882

From Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Wreck of the Deutschland":

                  Be adored among men,
            God, three-numberèd form;
      Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,
            Man’s malice, with wrecking and storm.
   Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,
   Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;
       Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung:
Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.

                  With an anvil-ding
             And with fire in him forge thy will
         Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring
              Through him, melt him but master him still:
    Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul,
   Or as Austin,* a lingering-out sweet skill,
         Make mercy in all of us, out of us all
Mastery, but be adored, but be adored King.

*Augustine

"In a Valley of the Elwy"

I remember a house where all were good
  To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
  Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.

That cordial air made those kind people a hood
  All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
  Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
  Only the inmate does not correspond:

God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
  Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

From Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Easter":

"Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And a Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter's robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day."

In the Valley of the Elwy

I remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.
Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales, 
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

The Habit of Perfection

Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd 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 shellèd, 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.


Gerard Manley Hopkins