[Meme] Poetry

[lproven]

It seems there is a meme of posting a poem in one's LJ. I approve. I haven't posted one for months, since a lovely little piece called "Separation". And some of my own wretched haiku. So...

major_clanger has beaten me to it with "High Flight", so instead, I choose another aerial gem:

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
  dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dáwn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rólling level úndernéath him steady áir, & stríding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl & gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -- the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty & valour & act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, o my chevalier!
No wónder of it: shéer plód makes plóugh down síllion
Shine, & blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gáll themsélves, & gásh góld-vermílion.

  - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

I have left in Hopkins' accents, used to indicated the stresses of his "sprung rhythm", part of his lovely signature style. Scansion schmansion, it all works, somehow.