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Poem: “As Kingfishers Catch Fire”

by on Aug 02, 2012 in Poetry
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As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As king fishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
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 What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Christ. 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.

Gerard Manley Hopkins


Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in Stratford, England in 1844. He was a Jesuit priest and a poet. During his lifetime, most of his poems were rejected for publication. After a difficult life filled with depression and what he considered personal failures, Hopkins died of Typhoid fever in 1889. He was 44 years old. However, on his deathbed his depression seemed to have left him, his last words being, “"I am so happy, I am so happy. I loved my life." He is thought of as one the Victorian era's greatest poets. He is famous for his use of sprung rhythm, at a time when metered rhythm was the norm.