Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poet and Priest

The Catholic Literary Revival was a time when art of various kinds was produced by Catholics all over the world. Catholic poets, musicians, play-wrights, and novelists emerged in Germany, France, England, Japan, and the United States. This abundance of Catholic artists included, among others, Thomas Mann, Charles Peguy, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, Dorothy Sayers, T.S. Eliot, Edward Elgar, Shusaku Endo, Flannery O’Conner, and Walker Percy. Gerard Manley Hopkins, a convert to Catholicism, could also be added to this list; he was both a Catholic poet and a Jesuit priest.¹

This Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in England on the 28th of July in the year 1844. He originally belonged to the Church of England but he eventually converted to Roman Catholicism in 1866, partly due to the influence of John Henry Newman. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1877 at 33 years of age. He died at the age of 44 in 1889 and, at that time, “he was unknown as a poet.”² His poems were first published in 1918 by a friend of his.³

When he was young, Hopkins burned his poems because he believed that poetry was "simply unnecessary and unimportant—a self-indulgence at odds with the seriousness of his religious vocation."⁴ In fact, Hopkins many times resolved to give up poetry for the sake of God.⁵ However, he did continue to write poetry until shortly before he died.⁶ What follows is the poem “Morning Midday and Evening Sacrifice,” written by Gerard Manley Hopkins.  Underneath Hopkins’ poem is a poem written by the author in imitation of “Morning Midday and Evening Sacrifice.” This latter poem is called “Faith Hope and Love at Sacrifice."

Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Poem:

  

Morning Midday and Evening Sacrifice

The dappled die-away

Cheek and wimpled lip,

The gold-wisp, the airy-grey

Eye, all in fellowship—

This, all this beauty blooming,

This, all this freshness fuming,

Give God while worth consuming.

Both thought and thew now bolder

And told by Nature: Tower;

Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder

That beat and breathe in power—

This pride of prime’s enjoyment

Take as for tool, not toy meant

And hold at Christ’s employment.

The vault and scope and schooling

And mastery in the mind,

In silk-ash kept from cooling,

And ripest under rind—

What life half lifts the latch of,

What hell stalks towards the snatch of,

Your offering, with despatch, of!⁷

Imitation by the author:

  

Faith Hope and Love at Sacrifice

The colors fade-away

White and golden Cup;

The heart-gaze, the whisper-pray,

Soul, all are lifted up—

Here, all in Faith believing,

Here, all God’s Love is saving,

Faith frees from fear’s enslaving.

Both heart and head now stronger

And told what now to long for;

Face, forearm, foot, and finger

To love and live in Grandeur—

Here Hope sees Hope’s enjoyment

Given as start, not finishment

And glimpse of self’s fulfillment

The fire and flame of loving

And heartening of the heart,

By Christ-Rock saved from moving,

And hottest under hard—

What Faith frees from the fear of,

What Hope brings towards the close of,

Love enables to partake of!

  

Image: Open Plaques, “Gerard_Manley_Hopkins,_Stratford_Library,_London_(9436768278),” photograph, 4 August 2013, https://commons.wikimedia.org/.

¹ John Vidmar, The Catholic Church through the Ages: A History, Second Edition (New York: Paulist Press, 2014), 347-348.

² Joseph J. Feeney, “Praise Him,” America 212, issue 12 (6 April 2015), 14-15.

³ Feeney, “Praise Him,” 16.

⁴ David Jasper, “God’s Better Beauty: Language and Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins,” Christianity and Literature 34, no. 3 (1985), 9.

⁵ Jasper, “God Better Beauty,” 10.

⁶ Feeney, “Praise Him,” 15.

⁷ Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur” and Other Poems (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995), 30.