Famous Gerard Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Gerard poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous gerard poems. These examples illustrate what a famous gerard poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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St. Winefreds Well

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 ACT I. SC. I

Enter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.

T. WHAT is it, Gwen, my girl? why do you hover and haunt me? 

W. You came by Caerwys, sir? 
T. I came by Caerwys. 
W. There
Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle. 
T. Your uncle met the messenger—met me; and this the message:
Lord Beuno comes to-night. 
W....Read more of this...

Felix Randal

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 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...Read more of this...

What Being in Rank-Old Nature

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 What being in rank-old nature should earlier have that breath been
That h?re p?rsonal tells off these heart-song powerful peals?— 
A bush-browed, beetle-br?wed b?llow is it? 
With a so?th-w?sterly w?nd bl?stering, with a tide rolls reels 
Of crumbling, fore-foundering, thundering all-surfy seas in; seen
?nderneath, their glassy barrel, of a fairy green.
. . . . . . . . 
Or a...Read more of this...

The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 (Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well) 


 THE LEADEN ECHO

How to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, ... from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving...Read more of this...

Duns Scotuss Oxford

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Towery city and branchy between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded;
The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did
Once encounter in, here coped and poisèd powers; 
Thou hast a base and brickish skirt there, sours
That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded
Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded
Rural rural keeping—folk, flocks, and flowers. 

Yet ah! this air I gather and...Read more of this...

That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrection

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows ' flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs ' they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, ' wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long ' lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ' ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut...Read more of this...

St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Laybrother of the Society of Jesus


Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say; 
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, 
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day. 
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield 
Unseen, the heroic...Read more of this...

The Silver Jubilee

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 To James First Bishop of Shrewsbury on the 
25th Year of his Episcopate July 28. 1876


1

THOUGH no high-hung bells or din
Of braggart bugles cry it in— 
 What is sound? Nature's round
Makes the Silver Jubilee. 

2

Five and twenty years have run
Since sacred fountains to the sun
 Sprang, that but now were shut,
Showering Silver Jubilee. 

3

Feasts, when we shall fall...Read more of this...

At The Wedding March

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 God with honour hang your head,
Groom, and grace you, bride, your bed
With lissome scions, sweet scions,
Out of hallowed bodies bred. 
Each be other's comfort kind:
Déep, déeper than divined,
Divine charity, dear charity,
Fast you ever, fast bind. 

Then let the March tread our ears:
I to him turn with tears
Who to wedlock, his wonder wedlock,
Déals tríumph and immortal years....Read more of this...

Toms Garland

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 upon the Unemployed


Tom—garlanded with squat and surly steel
Tom; then Tom's fallowbootfellow piles pick
By him and rips out rockfire homeforth—sturdy Dick;
Tom Heart-at-ease, Tom Navvy: he is all for his meal
Sure, 's bed now. Low be it: lustily he his low lot (feel
That ne'er need hunger, Tom; Tom seldom sick,
Seldomer heartsore; that treads through, prickproof, thick
Thousands of thorns, thoughts) swings though....Read more of this...

The Woodlark

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Teevo cheevo cheevio chee:
O where, what can th?at be? 
Weedio-weedio: there again! 
So tiny a trickle of s?ng-strain; 
And all round not to be found
For brier, bough, furrow, or gr?en ground 
Before or behind or far or at hand 
Either left either right 
Anywhere in the s?nlight. 
Well, after all! Ah but hark—
‘I am the little w?odlark.
. . ....Read more of this...

The Handsome Heart

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 at a Gracious Answer


'But tell me, child, your choice; what shall I buy
You?'—'Father, what you buy me I like best.'
With the sweetest air that said, still plied and pressed,
He swung to his first poised purport of reply. 

What the heart is! which, like carriers let fly—
Doff darkness, homing nature knows the rest—
To its own fine function, wild and self-instressed,
Falls...Read more of this...

Cheery Beggar

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Beyond M?gdalen and by the Bridge, on a place called there the Plain, 
In Summer, in a burst of summertime 
Following falls and falls of rain, 
When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of 
Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime;
. . . . . . . .
The motion of that man’s heart is...Read more of this...

The Windhover: To Christ Our Lord

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 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...Read more of this...

To His Watch

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Mortal my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart
Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I
Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie 
The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art? 
The telling time our task is; time’s some part,
Not all, but we were framed to fail and die— 
One spell and well that one. There, ah thereby
Is comfort’s carol...Read more of this...

Repeat That Repeat

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Repeat that, repeat,
Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delightfully sweet,
With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound 
Off trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow hollow hollow ground:
The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound....Read more of this...

To a Young Child

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had,...Read more of this...

The Lantern Out Of Doors

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Sometimes a lantern moves along the night,
 That interests our eyes. And who goes there?
 I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,
With, all down darkness wide, his wading light? 
Men go by me whom either beauty bright
 In mould or mind or what not else makes rare:
 They rain against our much-thick and marsh air
Rich beams, till...Read more of this...

Andromeda

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Now Time's Andromeda on this rock rude,
With not her either beauty's equal or
Her injury's, looks off by both horns of shore,
Her flower, her piece of being, doomed dragon's food.
 Time past she has been attempted and pursued
By many blows and banes; but now hears roar
A wilder beast from West than all were, more
Rife in her wrongs, more lawless, and...Read more of this...

The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that 's fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing's life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many...Read more of this...

To Him Who Ever Thought with Love of Me

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 To him who ever thought with love of me 
Or ever did for my sake some good deed 
I will appear, looking such charity 
And kind compassion, at his life’s last need
That he will out of hand and heartily
Repent he sinned and all his sins be freed....Read more of this...

The Sea Took Pity

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The sea took pity: it interposed with doom: 
‘I have tall daughters dear that heed my hand: 
Let Winter wed one, sow them in her womb, 
And she shall child them on the New-world strand.’
. . . . . . . ....Read more of this...

The Habit Of Perfection

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear. 

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent. 

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps,...Read more of this...

The Furl of Fresh-Leaved Dogrose Down

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 The furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down 
His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun 
Had swarthed about with lion-brown 
Before the Spring was done. 

His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,
With hempen strands in spray— 
Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks—fall’n off their ranks, 
Swung down at a disarray. 

Or like a juicy and jostling shock 
Of bluebells sheaved in May
Or wind-long fleeces on the flock...Read more of this...

The Half-way House

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 Love I was shewn upon the mountain-side
And bid to catch Him ere the dropp of day.
See, Love, I creep and Thou on wings dost ride: 
Love it is evening now and Thou away; 
Love, it grows darker here and Thou art above; 
Love, come down to me if Thy name be Love.

My national old Egyptian reed gave way; 
I...Read more of this...

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