Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889 / Stratford, Essex)

......holds no promise of success; / Then sweetest seems the houseless shore, / Then free and kind the wilderness, ..............

i believe it's time to cycle this poems this appeared mar 05 2007 and for every year
on this date. it would be more interesting if they replace these 365 poems that has been scheduled to appear automatically at same date ever since when 2007 to be exact.

The existential angst of a spiritual person in a material world.

Why are we having this poem so soon after it was commented on 5th March? Do the guardians of this site have no better system than this?

In the opening stanza, the speaker sees the city through the window. He is a passive observer of the passing scene. Crowds do NOT achieve much of anything. Indeed it is the men and masters who plan and build the towering buildings that he sees. The speaker reflects on his own endeavors which require much longer periods of time to reach fulfillment. Is he contemplating his priestly duties as a Jesuit? Or is he striving to express himself and his ideas about God in the weekly sonnets he writes? Recall that none of his poetry was acclaimed in his brief lifetime - perhaps a man of God must deal with longer spans of time because of the infinite nature of his calling? The speaker mentions his 'cumbrous shame' which burdens him when he deals with other men. The 'thankless lore' he refers to may be the efforts to write his particular kind of poetry and thereby express the glory of God. I think that Hopkins realized that merely invoking the God he adored was not enough to bring into being the magic and beauty of his vision! When he meets those periods of doubt and near-despair that afflict him spiritually, then he longs for the wilderness and the houseless shore as he pierces the yellow waxen light of creation. Note how the passive man in stanza one becomes one who desires weedy soil, who sees city pigeons veering as they sail through the bearing air (that which holds everything up) , who marks the tower swallows who inhabit all between the tower-top and the ground - he has become activated in his vision!

Hopkins observes in the opening stanza, that everything is changing altering and achievements are made by crowds who waste no time, while he stands still and is passed by. He can only watch ‘travelling clouds’, he is ‘Leaves spent’ but aware of ‘new seasons, alter'd sky, ’ and the happiness others feel in fulfilling their dreams.
The making and the melting crowds:
The whole world passes; I stand by.

They do not waste their meted hours,
But men and masters plan and build:
I see the crowning of their towers,
And happy promises fulfill'd.

Hopkins gives a reason for his failure in stanza three, admits he cannot transmute gold in stanza four, describes the shame of failure he feels in stanza five, expanding upon it with the separated fourth line of this stanza; exclaiming ‘More powerless than the blind or lame’, to describe an absolute inability to refire ‘The furnace’ of his former creativity and dreams. To escape the city and his ‘thankless lore; ’ Hopkins, a relic, an obsolete failed metaphorical alchemist in the city; will flee to the pastoral countryside to contemplate ‘With free long looking’ before he dies.

Hopkins seems to portray shunning the opulence of life, for the simple free given beauties of GODS world. Some say the best things in life are free.

And then I hate the most that lore
That holds no promise of success;
Then sweetest seems the houseless shore,
Then free and kind the wilderness,

Or ancient mounds that cover bones,
Or rocks where rockdoves do repair
And trees of terebinth and stones
And silence and a gulf of air.

There on a long and squared height
After the sunset I would lie,
And pierce the yellow waxen light
With free long looking, ere I die.....lovely words...shows the taste of the poet longing for an undisturbed mind to admire things of his choice around him....a helter-skelter city mob, I think only a few people like....to my knowledge people only tolerate living there...Hopkins is one such I guess

From the top window Hopkins sees the clouds and the busy city! He shuns the city like the pigeon that flies and settles in the tower top of calm and cool place for rest! Sublime minded people prefer to be free like the bird is indeed quite true! Hopkins has depicted the comparison beautifully in the fine well measured poem!

City is crowded, people in a hurry and they were too busy.Too occupied to notice what the city's beauty has to offer.But this poem open ups the hidden essence of wonderful possesion on it.That an ordinary person would seem to admire.