Long and lovely and lush

Hokey smokes—here we are in April. So you know it's time for National Poetry Month! Let’s kick it off with “Spring”, by one of my all-time favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins.

It’s possible his short life (1844-1889) perhaps contributed to the intensity of his works. He converted to Roman Catholicism while at Oxford and spent his adult years as a Jesuit priest. He wrote some poems while at university, but almost nothing was known of his poetry until after his death. Had he not sent some to his friend Robert Bridges (eventually Poet Laureate of Britain), I shudder to consider what we might have lost.

Hopkins used assonance, onomatopoeia and alliteration as well as rhyme. He had no fears about pushing the limits of form to make his point. His “Pied Beauty” is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever heard, and I dare you to read it without your face wanting to smile and your heart wanting to lift. It is joy captured like a butterfly resting momentarily in your cupped hands.

Let’s just lean into the month like Hopkins leans into the season.

“Spring”

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –         
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;         
   Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush         
   The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush         
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.         

What is all this juice and all this joy?         
   A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,         
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,         
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,         
   Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.