GM Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins by George Giberne, 1863

I remember a house where all were good

To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:

Comforting smell breathed at very entering,

Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.

That cordial air made those kind people a hood

All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing

Will, or mild nights the new morsels of Spring:

Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Alfred William Garrett; William Alexander Comyn Macfarlane; Gerard Manley Hopkins

by Thomas C. Bayfield, 1866, © National Portrait Gallery, London

I greatly admire the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins (who has a connection with Liverpool Hope University) and co-organised the ‘Hopkins at Hope’ event held on 28 April 2015.

FELIX RANDAL the farrier, O he is dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?

Sickness broke him. Impatient he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!

This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;

How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

‘Liverpool, April 28, 1880.’