Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Sonnet ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’

A kingfisher and dragonfly in this sonnet rejoice in creation just by being what they are.
Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Sonnet ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’
Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins's sonnet "As Kingfishers Catch Fire" gives each being in creation its special place. A rufous-collared kingfisher. Jakob Wijkema/CC BY 2.5
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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 Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices; Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is— Chríst—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.

Marlena Figge
Marlena Figge
Author
Marlena Figge received her M.A. in Italian Literature from Middlebury College in 2021 and graduated from the University of Dallas in 2020 with a B.A. in Italian and English. She currently has a teaching fellowship and teaches English at a high school in Italy.
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