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Saturday, July 21, 2012

Poem-A-Day: Gerard Manley Hopkins, As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame

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Academy of American Poets

July 21, 2012

Today's poem appears in Poems and Prose, published by Penguin Classics.

More from this author




Other Hopkins Poems

  • 'The child is father to the man.'
  • Carrion Comfort
  • God's Grandeur
  • I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day
  • Peace

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    As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme
    by Gerard Manley Hopkins


    As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
    As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
    Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
    Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
    Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
    Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
    Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
    Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

    Í say móre: the just man justices;
    Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
    Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is—
    Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
    Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
    To the Father through the features of men's faces.

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