As kingfishers 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 This poem was written in about 1880, twenty-eight years before Hopkins’ fellow Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin came to Hastings, but it is rather unlikely that Teilhard knew the poem.The first collecton of Hopkins’ poems was published in 1918, edited by Robert Bridges.
This poem was written in about 1880, twenty-eight years before Hopkins' fellow Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin came to Hastings, but it is rather unlikely that Teilhard knew the poem. The first collection of Hopkins' poems was published in 1918, edited by Robert Bridges.