Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
Duns Scotus's Oxford
1Towery city & branchy between towers;
2 Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark charmèd, rook racked, river-rounded;
3 The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country & town did
4Once encounter in, here coped & poisèd powers;
5Thou hast a base & brickish skirt there, sours
6 That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded
7 Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded
8Rural, rural keeping -- folk, flocks, & flowers.
9Yet ah! this air I gather & I release
10 He lived on: these weeds & waters, these walls are what
11He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;
12 Of realty the rarest-veinèd unraveller; a not
13Rivalled insight, be rival Italy or Greece;
14 Who fíred Fránce for Máry withóut spót.
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): 155. 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:
1878
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbacdcdcd
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