Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
1As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
2 As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
3 Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
4Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
5Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
6 Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
7 Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
8Crying What I do is me: for that I came.
9 I say more: the just man justices;
10 Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
11Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
12 Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
13Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
14 To the Father through the features of men's faces.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: The Later Poetic Manuscripts of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile, ed. Norman H. MacKenzie (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991): 106-07. PR 4803 H44A6 1991 Robarts Library
First publication date:
1918
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/14
Composition date:
1879
-
1882
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbacdcdcd
Other poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
