Poetry, VOLUME 7

Gerard Manley Hopkins – 5 Favorite Poems

July 28 marks the birthday of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

 

The primary collection of Hopkins’s poems
is available as a FREE ebook:

Download now for Kindle  – OR- Various formats via Proj. Gutenberg

 

Here are 5 of my favorite of Hopkins’s poems:

 

Patience

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 distils
Delicious kindness?–He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.

 

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What are your favorite poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins?

 

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One Comment

  1. Here’s one of my favorite poems:

    Spring and Fall
    to a young child
    by Gerard Manley Hopkins

    MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
    Over Goldengrove unleaving?
    Leáves, líke the things of man, you
    With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
    Áh! ás the heart grows older
    It will come to such sights colder
    By and by, nor spare a sigh
    Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
    And yet you wíll weep and know why.
    Now no matter, child, the name:
    Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
    Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
    What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
    It ís the blight man was born for,
    It is Margaret you mourn for.