The Windhover

Listen to:

The Windhover (1:08)

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The Windhover:

To Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning's minion, king-

     dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Fal-

          con, 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 ecstacy! 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: shéer plód makes plough down

          sillion

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

   Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.