HOPSKIN


                          
                        No angel, Skin, but lover of juice-rich lea;
                          Raptured ripple-rhymester, jocund, jibing youth;
                          Private sayer, priestly seer of sweeping sooth,
                        Swallow-swooning at curl, hurl of sea, up and free-
                        Wheeling the sky alight on firefly wings oh so smooth.
                          Ah, doctrines, slow fasts, trains helter to heaven’s city.
                          Even as dawn dewdrops tremble to absorb infinity,
                        Startle us still, distil unblinding truth.


                        But th’azure-flamed candle gutters, gashes:
                          Digby dead, dear, oh you did low lie,
                        Tho’ Phoenix-risen high Roman ‘bove the ashes;
                          At twilight’s rim, typhus-tossed, you mortify.
                        Gold-wisp threads heaven havenwards, unabashed,
                          Undimmed by death, God’s peacock eye.

1.      ‘Skin’ was Gerard Manley Hopkins’ nickname at Highgate School, England.
2.      Digby Dolben was an intimate friend of Hopkins at Balliol College, Oxford.
3.      ‘heaven’s city’ was Oxford.

                                                            Michael Small
August, 1992


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