Giving Up Poetry for Lent: Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Quest for Perfection
For the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins,
the year 1866 was marked by introspection and
transformation.
On January 18, 1866, he composed his poem The
Habit of Perfection, which hailed the virtue of
ascetism.
Five days later, on January 23, he included poetry
in a list of things he planned to give up for
Lent. And by July, against the wishes of his
family, he had decided to leave his native
Anglicanism for the Catholic Church.
That September, he travelled to Birmingham to consult with John Henry
Newman, leader of the Oxford converts; and he was received into the Catholic
Church on October 21, 1866.
Here, for your reading entertainment, is the introspective poem The
Habit of Perfection, at which Hopkins toiled as he worked through his
spiritual confusion and sought holiness through sacrifice.
Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
Nostrils, your careless breath that
spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-
dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders
come
Which only makes you eloquent.
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy
sward,
But you shall walk the golden
street
And you unhouse and house the
Lord.
Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you
remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple
sight.
And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast
begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor
spun.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the
crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!
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