Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
The Starlight Night
1Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
2 O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
3 The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
4Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
5The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
6 Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
7 Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare! --
8Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
9Buy then! bid then! -- What? -- Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
10 Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
11Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
12 These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
13 The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
14Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.
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): 103. 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:
1877
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbaccdeed
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