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Photo of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Hopkins, Gerard Manley

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets.. English poet Roman Catholic convert and Jesuit priest

Email Poem - Ash-BoughsEmail Poem

Ash-Boughs

 a.

Not of all my eyes see, wandering on the world, 
Is anything a milk to the mind so, so sighs deep 
Poetry to it, as a tree whose boughs break in the sky. 
Say it is ashboughs: whether on a December day and furled 
Fast ?r they in clammyish lashtender combs creep
Apart wide and new-nestle at heaven most high. 
They touch heaven, tabour on it; how their talons sweep 
The smouldering enormous winter welkin! May 
Mells blue and snowwhite through them, a fringe and fray 
Of greenery: it is old earth’s groping towards the steep
Heaven whom she childs us by. 


(Variant from line 7.) b.

They touch, they tabour on it, hover on it[; here, there hurled], 
With talons sweep 
The smouldering enormous winter welkin. [Eye, 
But more cheer is when] May
Mells blue with snowwhite through their fringe and fray 
Of greenery and old earth gropes for, grasps at steep 
Heaven with it whom she childs things by.



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