Spring 2015
THOUGHTS ON SPRING (1844-1899)
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
A POETRY EDITORIAL BY O ONAH V J OSLIN
I always think of this poem in Spring. I studied Hopkins as part of my A level course when I was
18 and in my own spring. He was an Oxford graduate and Jesuit priest who always put the priesthood
first and so did not write maybe as much as he might have and was largely unpublished in his own
lifetime, partly because he didn’t seek worldly fame and partly because his work was so innovative.
He used ‘sprung rhythm’ which takes its stresses from the Welsh language which he learned in
seminary in North Wales. He didn’t believe in writing poetry for poetry’s sake. He only wrote inspired
work, inspired by nature which is God’s great work, or by events which are the working will of God.
God is central. God is all, as the last, intriguing line shows us. It is addressed to Jesus:
“Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.”
SPRING
Nothing is so beautiful as spring —
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. — Have, get, before it cloy,
The Linnet's Wings Poetry