The Windhover: To Christ our Lord
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in
his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and
gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,-the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themsevles, and gash gold-vermillion.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Fourth Edition
Revised and Enlarged
Edited by W.H. Gardner
and N.H. MacKenzie
London
Oxford University Press
New York, Toronto
1967