Project Gutenberg's Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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Title: Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins Now First Published

Author: Gerard Manley Hopkins

Editor: Robert Bridges

Release Date: August 26, 2007 [EBook #22403]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS ***

Produced by Lewis Jones

Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1918) "Poems"

Poems

of

Gerard Manley Hopkins

now first published

Edited with notes

by

ROBERT BRIDGES

Poet Laureate

LONDON

HUMPHREY MILFORD

CATHARINAE

HVNC LIBRVM

QVI FILA EIVS CARISSIMI

POETAE DEBITAM INGENIO LAVDEM EXPECTANTIS

SERVM TAMEN MONVMENTVM ESSET

ANNVM AETATIS XCVIII AGENTI

VETERIS AMICITIAE PIGNVS

D D D

R B

Transcriber's notes: The poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins contain unconventional English, accents and horizontal lines. Facsimile images of the poems as originally published are freely available online from the Internet Archive. Please use these images to check for any errors or inadequacies in this electronic text.

The editor's endnotes refer to the page numbers of the Author's Preface and to the first page of the Early Poems. I have therefore inserted these page numbers in round brackets: (1), (2), etc. up to (7). For pages 1 to 7 the line numbers in this electronic version are the same as those referred to in the editor's endnotes.

After page 7 this text mainly follows the editor's endnotes which, apart from the occasional page reference, refer to the poems by their numbers. For example:

5. PENMAEN POOL.

In poem 26 I have retained the larger than normal spacing between the first and second words of the eighth line.

In poem 36 I have rendered the first word of line 28 as "Óne." In the original the accent falls on the second letter but I did not have a text character to record this accurately.

The editor's notes contain one word and, later, one phrase from the ancient Greek; these are retained but the Greek letters have been Englished.

CONTENTS

Author's Preface
Early Poems
Poems 1876-1889
Unfinished Poems & Fragments

EDITORIAL

Preface to Notes
Notes

OUR generation already is overpast,
And thy lov'd legacy, Gerard, hath lain
Coy in my home; as once thy heart was fain
Of shelter, when God's terror held thee fast
In life's wild wood at Beauty and Sorrow aghast;
Thy sainted sense tramme'd in ghostly pain,
Thy rare ill-broker'd talent in disdain:
Yet love of Christ will win man's love at last.

 Hell wars without; but, dear, the while my hands
Gather'd thy book, I heard, this wintry day,
Thy spirit thank me, in his young delight
Stepping again upon the yellow sands.
 Go forth: amidst our chaffinch flock display
Thy plumage of far wonder and heavenward flight!

Chilswell, Jan. 1918.

(1) AUTHOR'S PREFACE

THE poems in this book* (*That is, the MS. described in Editor's preface as B. This preface does not apply to the early poems.) are written some in Running Rhythm, the common rhythm in English use, some in Sprung Rhythm, and some in a mixture of the two. And those in the common rhythm are some counterpointed, some not.

Common English rhythm, called Running Rhythm above, is measured by feet of either two or three syllables and (putting aside the imperfect feet at the beginning and end of lines and also some unusual measures, in which feet seem to be paired together and double or composite feet to arise) never more or less.

Every foot has one principal stress or accent, and this or the syllable it falls on may be called the Stress of the foot and the other part, the one or two unaccented syllables, the Slack. Feet (and the rhythms made out of them) in which the stress comes first are called Falling Feet and Falling Rhythms, feet and rhythm in which the slack comes first are called Rising Feet and Rhythms, and if the stress is between two slacks there will be Rocking Feet and Rhythms. These distinctions are real and true to nature; but for purposes of scanning it is a great convenience to follow the (2) example of music and take the stress always first, as the accent or the chief accent always comes first in a musical bar. If this is done there will be in common English verse only two possible feet—the so-called accentual Trochee and Dactyl, and correspondingly only two possible uniform rhythms, the so-called Trochaic and Dactylic. But they may be mixed and then what the Greeks called a Logaoedic Rhythm arises. These are the facts and according to these the scanning of ordinary regularly-written English verse is very simple indeed and to bring in other principles is here unnecessary.

But because verse written strictly in these feet and by these principles will become same and tame the poets have brought in licences and departures from rule to give variety, and especially when the natural rhythm is rising, as in the common ten-syllable or five-foot verse, rhymed or blank. These irregularities are chiefly Reversed Feet and Reversed or Counterpoint Rhythm, which two things are two steps or degrees of licence in the same kind. By a reversed foot I mean the putting the stress where, to judge by the rest of the measure, the slack should be and the slack where the stress, and this is done freely at the beginning of a line and, in the course of a line, after a pause; only scarcely ever in the second foot or place and never in the last, unless when the poet designs some extraordinary effect; for these places are characteristic and sensitive and cannot well be touched. But the reversal of the first foot and of some middle (3) foot after a strong pause is a thing so natural that our poets have generally done it, from Chaucer down, without remark and it commonly passes unnoticed and cannot be said to amount to a formal change of rhythm, but rather is that irregularity which all natural growth and motion shews. If however the reversal is repeated in two feet running, especially so as to include the sensitive second foot, it must be due either to great want of ear or else is a calculated effect, the super- inducing or mounting of a new rhythm upon the old; and since the new or mounted rhythm is actually heard and at the same time the mind naturally supplies the natural or standard foregoing rhythm, for we do not forget what the rhythm is that by rights we should be hearing, two rhythms are in some manner running at once and we have something answerable to counter- point in music, which is two or more strains of tune going on together, and this is