When A Poet Writes Prose

... the result is magical.

Some years back I've had the opportunity to read a couple of poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and was an instant fan. A few days ago I chanced upon a volume containing most of his poems and examples of his prose, edited by W.H. Gardner, and thanks to several "waiting periods" was able to finish the book today.

I am not trained in literary criticism, all I know is that I am touched deeply by certain poems... and I wanna share!! :) Below are some examples of his work:

"I have found my music in a common word,

Trying each pleasurable throat that sings

And every praised sequence of sweet strings,

And know infallibly which I preferred.

 

The authentic cadence was discovered late

Which ends those only strains that I approve,

And other science all gone out of date

And minor sweetness scarce made mention of:

I have found the dominant of my range and state –

Love, O my God, to call Thee Love and Love."

 

.....

 

"But ah, bright forelock, cluster that you are

Of favored make and mind and health and youth,

Where lies your landmark, seamark, or soul’s star?

There’s none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth...

 

Enough: corruption was the world’s first woe.

What need I strain my heart beyond my ken?

O but I need bear my burning witness though

Against the wild and wanton work of men."

 

And of course there are his more famous poems: God's Grandeur, As kingfishers catch fire, Pied Beauty, etc., the texts of which can be found in several pages online.

 

Reading his prose proved most inspiring as well!

 

If I were the one writing, I'd say: "This morning I submitted the last of the test papers... if it hadn't been for that responsibility, I would have been able to practice piano like I wanted to."

 

Genius Gerard (hehe, feeling close, first name basis kami!) said it thus:

 

"This morning I gave in what I believe is the last batch of examination-work this autum (and if all were seen, fallen leaves of my poor life between all the leaves of it), and but for that want I might prance on ivory this very afternoon."

 

PRANCE ON IVORY!!!!

 

Again, another example... I would say: "I started composing music in the style of Gregorian chant in A minor for a certain poem because it struck me deeply."

 

Genius Gerard said: "I began some music, Gregorian, in the natural scale of A, to Collin's Ode to Evening. Quickened by the heavenly beauty of that poem I groped in my soul's very viscera for the tune and thrummed the sweetest and most secret catgut of the mind."

 

CATGUT OF THE MIND!!!

 

(Why, oh why, can't we mortals sound THIS good? Hehe)

 

Last na.

 

I'd say: "How beautiful the bluebell is!"

 

Gerard said: "I do not think I have ever seen anything more beautiful than the bluebell I have been looking at. I know the beauty of our Lord by it."

 

Last na last na. This is his description of the Aurora Borealis:

 

"First saw the Northern Lights. My eye was caught by beams of light and dark very like the crown of horny rays the sun makes behind a cloud. ... They rose slightly radiating thrown out from the earthline. Then I saw soft pulses of light one after another rise and pass upwards arched in shape but waveringly and with the arch broken. They seemed to float, not following the warp of the sphere as falling stars look to do but free though concentrical with it. This busy working of nature wholly independent of the earth and seeming to go on in a strain of time not reckoned by our reckoning of days and years but simpler and as if correcting the preoccupation of the world by being preoccupied with and appealing to and dated to the day of judgement was like a new witness to God and filled me with delightful fear."

 

Forgive the incoherent fan-girl rave style of this post. Contact me if you want to join the Philippine chapter of his fan club ;)