The Windhover
To Christ Our Lord
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!
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!
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
Where can I verify the claim that Hopkins composed “The Windhover” in part as a meditation on the major elevation of the Eucharist? With Flannery O’Connor, I’d agree that you don’t understand a work of art if you read it merely as allegory. Nevertheless, this connection has always astounded me. I don’t think Hopkins would have compartmentalized his life—“Now I am a poet. Now I am a priest.”—but would have seen it as all of a piece. Watching a falcon, handling a falcon, watching the host, holding the host—must have been for Hopkins exactly the kind of thing that humbled and exalted him all at once. It is pretty astounding to see God descend into our grasp but know that He is not “tame.”
Did Hopkins know this line from Dante?
As the tir’d Falcon, ere on Earth she light,
Turns to the well-known lure, and speeds her flight
Where her glad Lord prepares the savoury feast ;
Thus eagerly I pass’d the rocky strait,
So ply’d my feet to find the op’ning gate (Purgatorio, Canto XIX)
Christ is falcon and falconer. I used to pray the Hopkins poem at Mass right before Holy Communion. I took it up again recently. A blessed Corpus Christi to you.
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!
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!
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
Where can I verify the claim that Hopkins composed “The Windhover” in part as a meditation on the major elevation of the Eucharist? With Flannery O’Connor, I’d agree that you don’t understand a work of art if you read it merely as allegory. Nevertheless, this connection has always astounded me. I don’t think Hopkins would have compartmentalized his life—“Now I am a poet. Now I am a priest.”—but would have seen it as all of a piece. Watching a falcon, handling a falcon, watching the host, holding the host—must have been for Hopkins exactly the kind of thing that humbled and exalted him all at once. It is pretty astounding to see God descend into our grasp but know that He is not “tame.”
Did Hopkins know this line from Dante?
As the tir’d Falcon, ere on Earth she light,
Turns to the well-known lure, and speeds her flight
Where her glad Lord prepares the savoury feast ;
Thus eagerly I pass’d the rocky strait,
So ply’d my feet to find the op’ning gate (Purgatorio, Canto XIX)
Christ is falcon and falconer. I used to pray the Hopkins poem at Mass right before Holy Communion. I took it up again recently. A blessed Corpus Christi to you.