THE WINDHOVER

A windhover, or kestrel, a falcon known for its

ability to hover in mid air, even against the wind.

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When I was a teenager, I found a little article in one of those "magazines" that came with the Sunday newspaper. Charmingly illustrated, it was a list of actor Richard Burton's five favorite poems. I clipped that article and carried it with me for years. I probably lost it, finally, in our home fire.

It was my great introduction to one of my all-time loves, English literature. One of the poems was "The Windhover", printed below, and another was "Fern Hill," which I will print in my next post. A third was "Miniver Cheevy." At the moment, I can't remember the other two poems, but they may be somewhere in the nooks and crannies of my head.

I loved this poem even before I took a poetry class and learned that this is a poem that MUST be read aloud. And that's where I learned what "sheer plod makes plough down sillion shine" meant (Putting a plow to soil turns up bits of sparkle and shine where the sun hits it, is how our English professor explained it.)

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"The Windhover"

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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To Christ our Lord

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I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, -- the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

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Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

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No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

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Stupid, stupid Blogger. Why will it let me double space sometimes and sometimes not?