The Fine Delight

The fine delight
that fathers thought

The strong spur

Live and lancing
like the blowpipe flame

Breathes once

And quench-ed
faster than it came

Leaves yet the mind
a mother of immortal song

----

Nine months she then

Nay years

Nine years

She long within her

Wears bears cares
and combs the same

The widow
of an insight lost

She lives

With aim now known
and hand at work

Now never wrong

----

Sweet fire
the sire of muse

My soul needs this

----

I want the rapture
of an inspiration

----

O then if
in my lagging lines

You miss the roll

The rise

The carol

The creation

My winter world
that scarcely breathes that bliss

Now

Yields you
with some sighs

Our explanation

----

This poem is called "To R. B." by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

[p.76, "Selected Poems of G. M. Hopkins", An HEB Paperback POETRY BOOKSHELF (General Editor: James Reeves), first published by Heinemann Educational 1953, ISBN 0435150073]