The Starlight Night
by Gerard Manley Hopkins(1845-1889)

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
⁠         O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
⁠         The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
⁠         Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
⁠         Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!—
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! bid then!—What?—Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
⁠         Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
⁠         Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

Views: 42