Hey Candice thanks for this thrilling poem -- that man was alive (and
possibly reincarnated as Hart Crane). Do you know he read one poem of
Whitman's and refused to read any more because of the dangerous kinship
he felt?
Happy Holidays to you and all,
Mairead
On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, Candice Ward wrote:
>
> Winter with the Gulf Stream
> By Gerard Manley Hopkins
>
>
> The boughs, the boughs are bare enough
> But earth has never felt the snow.
> Frost-furred our ivies are and rough
>
> With bills of rime the brambles shew.
> The hoarse leaves crawl on hissing ground
> Because the sighing wind is low.
>
> But if the rain-blasts be unbound
> And from dank feathers wring the drops
> The clogged brook runs with choking sound
>
> Kneading the mounded mire that stops
> His channel under clammy coats
> Of foliage fallen in the copse.
>
> A simple passage of weak notes
> Is all the winter bird dare try.
> The bugle moon by daylight floats
>
> So glassy white about the sky,
> So like a berg of hyaline,
> And pencilled blue so daintily,
>
> I never saw her so divine.
> But through black branches, rarely drest
> In scarves of silky shot and shine,
>
> The webbed and the watery west
> Where yonder crimson fireball sets
> Looks laid for feasting and for rest.
>
> I see long reefs of violets
> In beryl-covered fens so dim,
> A gold-water Pactolus frets
>
> Its brindled wharves and yellow brim,
> The waxen colours weep and run,
> And slendering to his burning rim
>
> Into the flat blue mist the sun
> Drops out and all our day is done.
>
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