Here's a rare vinyl LP of superb recitals of the Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins by the British actor Richard Gray and a reading of one of his finest and most ambitious of poems.
The poem was written as part of a longer unfinished musical play "Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well" which he started in 1876 and completed the ;poem sometime around 1882 The poem worries about beauty. The first part, 'The Leaden Echo,' frets about losing beauty: 'How to keep.../ Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty,...from vanishing away.'" It even considers eight ways to 'keep' beauty: a 'bow or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key'-the list is very feminine, even a bit comic. But they're all useless, and beauty becomes 'frowning,' 'wrinkles,' 'grey,' 'drooping,' 'dying,' 'tombs and worms.' In short, 'Nothing can be done/ To keep at bay/ Age and age's evils.' 'The Leaden Echo' ends with a thud: 'Be beginning to despair, to despair,/ Despair, despair, despair, despair.'"
second half, 'The Golden Echo.' This new echo-not 'Despair' but 'Spare!'-goes beyond death to the beauty 'Yonder.'" I recognize the earthly loss, but do not let fleeting beauty preoccupy you; rather, there 'is an everlastingness..., Oh, it is an all youth!/ Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maidengear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,/ Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girl grace-/ Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them."
"But 'send them' where, Father?"
The poem contains answer to the riddle of beauty: 'Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God beauty's self and beauty's giver.' First, in life, we dedicate our earthly beauty to God, then, at death, we go 'Yonder.' All in all, 'not a hair...is lost,' for God keeps beauty 'with fonder a care.../ Yonder.... We follow, now we follow.-Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,/ Yonder.' 'Yonder, yes yonder,' all the way here to heaven."
Gerard Manley Hopkins (July 28, 1844 -- June 8, 1889) was a Jesuit priest and English poet whose posthumous, 20th-century fame established him among the finest Victorian poets. His experimental explorations in prosody (especially in regard to sprung rhythm) and his vibrant use of imagery established him as both an original and daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse.
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