Quite as light-hearted as The Queen of Seasons and even more effervescent is the Marian praise verse of the Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins [1844-1889].
He is known for his resuscitation of sprung rhythm, last employed in the fourteenth century in the writing of Piers Plowman [approximately 1369-1370]. [Knott 1972:4}.
This rhythm, which Little [1968:1985] defines as: "a modern form of poetical rhythm based on that of medieval alliterative verse", is characterized by its almost irregular-sounding beat which Hopkins held to be "the nearest to . . . the native and natural rhythm of speech", as "the governing principle of the scansion" [Sampson 1970:596].
Cynghanedd
It must not be presumed that Hopkins spontaneous-seeming poetry was composed without a great deal of concentration.
In a two-volume biography, W H Gardner [1949:II:145] explains that Hopkins studied the Welsh language and was profoundly interested in "cynghanedd ... that strict and intricate set of rules governing internal rhyme and alliteration which characteri[z]e bulk of Welsh poetry from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century and which is still widely used today".
Hopkins' experiments with the composition of Welsh rhyme form were faulty, adds Gardner "but ... he knew all the rules".
According to Gardner {1949:II:151], Hopkins was profoundly interested in "cynghanedd sain" [tone].
This divides the line into three parts: the first and the second part rhyme with one another while the second and third part alliterate, as may be seen in the Hopkins poem The Blessed Virgin compared to the air we breathe in the line which reads: In grimy/vasty/vault [102].
Details such as this give an idea of the vast amount of thought that went into poetry which paradoxically appeared gossamer light.
Living Voice
Though virtually unknown in his own lifetime, Hopkins became celebrated in the twentieth century as "the most living voice among ... [the Victorians'] poets" [Sampson 1870:595].
One of the most original, refreshing and exhilarating English Marian poems ever written was his merry, informal The May Magnificat, like Newman's The Queen of Seasons intended for May.
He deprecatingly described this poem to his literary executor and critic Robert Bridges [Sampson 1970:595] as: "A Maypiece meant for the 'Month of Mary', ... in which I see little good but the freedom of the rhythm" [Gardner 1986:272].
In fact Hopkins' Marian poetry, like all his other work, was magnificent, as he not only had an inspired way with words but also cherished a supreme disregard for accepted academic usage thereof, permitting himself extreme latitude in the matter of poetic licence, with refreshingly innovative results.
When Hopkins was lost for a word that rhymed, he coined a neologism, such as opportunist to rhyme with soonest [11-12].
Moreover, to effect a rhyme he would freely shuffle his words, e.g.: How did she in her stored/Magnify the Lord [31-32].
Such was his linguistic genius that these shortcuts, far from hampering his poetry, instead invested it with a unique, brilliant freedom, causing it to soar aloft with a bird's abandon.
Of these lines Gardner [1949:II:269-270] writes that the poet when he wrote that Growth in everything [16] reminded Mary of How she did in her stored/Magnify the Lord "himself had perceived the analogy and wondered at the amazing humility of God."
THE MAY MAGNIFICAT
May is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season-
Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?
Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her? 10
Is it opportunist
And flowers finds soonest?
Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?-
Growth in everything
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested 20
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.
All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind 30
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surféd cherry 40
And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all-
This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.
It is the academic precision of the magnificent word power Hopkins was able to marshall to his aid whenever he needed to recreate the existing norm or fill gaps in the existing vocabulary that renders valid his innovational ploys.
What other poet gives us imagery at once to frothy and yet so definitive as Hopkins does in The May Magnificat with his drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple/Bloom [37-38], azuring-over grey-bell [41] and the magic cuckoocall/ [which] caps, clears, and clinches all [43-44]?
Dr Luky Whittle
Image by Rev Catherine
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