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| Gerard Manley Hopkins |
That Hopkins possessed all the Marian devotion of the mediævel era is clear in his majestic description of the Blessed Virgin as the mighty mother [13] and the way he gives nature into her keeping by linking Nature's motherhood [28] to Mary's own.
However, Gardner [1949:II:270] is specific in recording that the poet does not transgress the limitations imposed by hyperdulia, saying that: "... true Catholics do not deify the Blessed Virgin or practise idolatry before her image ... Hopkins' attitude towards her is strictly and correctly one of the highest veneration".
Bright illustration
The poet's use of alliteration in his deceptively simple poetry is as bright as a visible illustration: flesh and fleece, fur and feather/Grass and greenworld .../ Star-eyed, strawberry breasted [17/19] star-eyed strawberry breasted [19].
The dual unity of his religious devotion and childlike enthusiasm is reminiscent of that of his peers of the Middle Ages, while his academic brilliance and creative originality of word power deepen the poem's dimension and significance, which, while in thoughtfulness it matches the intricate metaphysical poetry of poets such as Donne, surpasses this genre by virtue of its innovative quality.
Colour abounds in this poem in a very ingenuous way. For Hopkins the simple mention of blue, red and green does not suffice.
On his word-palette he mixes his colours to produce bugle blue [21], drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple [37], silver surféd [40] and azuring-over greybell [41] and in so doing dazzles the reader's mind.
Intricately wrought grandeur
No less refreshing than The May Magnificat, though perhaps even more intricately wrought and impressive in the grandeur of its encompassing splendour, is Hopkins' thoughtful and thought-provoking The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe, the poem Gardner [1949:I:32] describes as being as much the consummation of pure joy as any [poems] in the language.
THE BLESSED VIRGIN COMPARED TO THE AIR WE BREATHE
Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that's fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing's life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element; 10
My more than meat and drink
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life's law
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God's infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast, 20
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race -
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess's
Was deeméd, dreaméd; who
This one work has to do -
Let all God's glory through, 30
God's glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense 40
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms' self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood/She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good/And plays in grace her part
About man's beating heart, 50
Laying, like air's fine flood/The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will/Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us, 60
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn -
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one 70
More makes, when all is done,
Both God's and Mary's Son
Again, look overhead
How air is azuréd;
O how! Nay, do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepéd sky will not 80
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft, 90
On things aloof, aloft
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round his roll
Flashing like flecks of coal, 100
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault,
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man's mind.
Through her we may see him 110
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my forward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there 120
Of God's love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
Worldmothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.
Of this poem Hopkins, in the diffident manner which marks letter concerned with his poetry, wrote to the poet Robert Bridges, his literary executor, that it was partly
a compromise with popular taste, and it is too true that the
highest subjects are not those on which it is easy to reach
one's highest.
[Gardner 1986:283]
As we have seen, Hopkins' opinion is not shared by his twentieth century admirers who discern a warmth and freshness to this poem which derives from the impled equating of nature's motherhood with that of Mary as did The May Magnificat. The introductory lines: Wild air, world-mothering air/Nestling me everywhere [1-2] provide a sense of universal, yet paradoxically snug, security and shelter.
The poet reveals consummate skill in juxtaposing vast concepts such as the air which circles the globe in balanced, geometric precision with the minute perfection of a single hair or eyelash and a frail snowflake and gives to each the individual respect due to an essential component of an impressive whole for In every least thing's life [8].
Only a man with profound reverence for all created things could instil into their description so profound an aura of dignity. To Hopkins it is creation which constitutes the miracle; as a result, nothing that has been created can be trivial or undeserving of respect.
Gardner [I:190] asserts that the line reading air girdles each eyelash [3] betrays the fact that the " 'metaphysical' characteristic is the possession of a searching, microscopic eye and an abnormally developed tactile sense".
Noticeable is the fact that Hopkins does not consider himself bound by uniformity in the matter of the length of his stanzas.
These number 33, 12, 27, 30, 11 and 13 respectively.
Each time the poet tackles a different train of thought, he starts a new stanza. This enhances the spontaneity of the poem by focusing attention on its contents rather than on any elaborateness of construction.
Fantastic influence
An extract from this poem which requires careful scrutiny is the following: Mary Immaculate/Merely a woman, yet/Whose presence, power is/Great as no goddess's/deeméd, dreaméd
[24-28].
It is evident here that Hopkins is not advocating the cult of goddesses but stating that Mary's all-encompassing presence in the heart and mind of Christ and humanity exerts fantastic influence.
What is significant is that, having been educated in the nineteenth century, the poet, unlike his pre-Reformation counterparts, is well versed in the classics and able to use them intellectually to enhance the scope of his poem.
Hopkins allows his knowledge to expand, rather than diminish, his topic.
Yet the poem is enhanced by a kaleidoscopic range of glancing references to every conceivable branch of science: anatomy: welcome in womb and breast [20], botany: does some soft/On things aloof, aloft/Bloom breathe [90-92], physiology: this air which by life's law/my lung must draw and draw [13-14], astronomy: the sun .../A blear and blinding ball/ ... and/the thick stars [96-99] and geology: quartz-fret. [101].
Then we have the creation of neologisms such as frailest-flixed [5], and vasty [102]. These ploys add a universal rather than global dimension to the poem's scope. By using alliterations such as wild web wondrous robe [38], fronting my forward eye [119] and patience, penance, prayer [122] the poet, while delighting his audience, lulls the reader into the passive state of meditation this poem requires in order for it to be savoured fully; at the same time marking signposts in the course of his argument.
By presenting himself as an I-writer, Hopkins includes the reader in his address to the Blessed Virgin, yet the painstaking development of his discourse and consequent revelation of new insights ensure that the reader remains aware of his [the poet's] existence.
Innocence and dignity
What is probably most striking about Hopkins' work is that he manages to combine the freshness of a childlike innocence with the impressive dignity of formal learning without surrendering either feature, in a way that is unparalleled in any other Marian verse quoted in these blogs. Hopkins retains an easy, informal note throughout his address to the Blessed Virgin but successfully negotiates the pitfall of ever lapsing into familiarity.
Dr Luky Whittle
Image by Rev Catherine
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