Quote #51

Wild air, world-mothering air, Nestling me everywhere, That each eyelash or hair Girdles; goes home betwixt The fleeciest, frailest-fixed Snowflake; that's fairly mixed With, riddles, and is rife In every least thing's life.

More from Gerard Manley Hopkins

  1. Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty's self and beauty's giver.
  2. I say that we are wound With mercy round and round As if with air.
  3. How to keep-is there any any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, lace, latch or catch or key to keep …
  4. World-mothering air, air wild, Wound with thee, in thee isled, Fold home, fast fold thy child.
  5. What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds an…
  6. Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist-slack they may be-these last strands of man In me or, most weary, c…
  7. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.
  8. That night, that year Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

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