Peace

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peacè, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame placed him among the leading Victorian poets. His experimental explorations in prosody and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse. Hopkins' work had cutting-edge sensibilities that prefigured the modernist style, though his poems were first published only in 1918, long after his death.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Habit of Perfection

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Simple Poetry

The Lantern out of Doors

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Simple Poetry

Patience, hard thing!

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Simple Poetry

In the Valley of the Elwy

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Simple Poetry

English

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The Habit of Perfection

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, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That wa...

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Ode To Peace. - Written On The Night Of My Mistress's Grand Rout.

Oh Peace, oh come with me and dwell -
But stop, for there's the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches
On Wednesday, when there's very few
In loft or pew -
Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch's.
Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage -
Hush! there's a carriage.
Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods -
The five Miss Woods!
Oh Peace! thou art the goddess I adore -
There come some more.
Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet -
That's Lord Dunn's footman, for he loves a riot!

Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann'd -
That's Weippert's band.
Oh Peace! how glad I welcome thy approaches -
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace! another carriage stops -
It's...

Thomas Hood

To seem the stranger

To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
Among strangèrs. Father and mother dear,
Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near
And he my peace my parting, sword and strife.
England, whose honour O all my heart woos, wife
To my creating thought, would neither hear
Me, were I pleading, plead nor do I: I wear-
y of idle a being but by where wars are rife.

I am in Ireland now; now I am at a thírd
Remove. Not but in all removes I can
Kind love both give and get. Only what word
Wisest my heart breeds dark heaven's baffling ban
Bars or hell's spell thwarts. This to hoard unheard,
Heard unheeded, leaves me a lonely began.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Patience, hard thing!

Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart's ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.

We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness? - He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

To R. B.

The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong
Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame,
Breathes once and, quenchèd faster than it came,
Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.
Nine months she then, nay years, nine years she long
Within her wears, bears, cares and moulds the same:
The widow of an insight lost she lives, with aim
Now known and hand at work now never wrong.
Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this;
I want the one rapture of an inspiration.
O then if in my lagging lines you miss
The roll, the rise, the carol, the creation,
My winter world, that scarcely breathes that bliss
Now, yields you, with some sighs, our explanation.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Peace.

I seek for Peace--I care not where 'tis found:
On this rude scene in briars and brambles drest,
If peace dwells here, 'tis consecrated ground,
And owns the power to give my bosom rest;
To soothe the rankling of each bitter wound,
Gall'd by rude Envy's adder-biting jest,
And worldly strife;--ah, I am looking round
For Peace's hermitage, can it be found?--
Surely that breeze that o'er the blue wave curl'd
Did whisper soft, "Thy wanderings here are blest."
How different from the language of the world!
Nor jeers nor taunts in this still spot are given:
Its calm's a balsam to a soul distrest;
And, where Peace smiles, a wilderness is heaven.

John Clare