G. M. Hopkins.
(1844 – 1889)
Ah!. Secret singer in your self-wrought cage
Of mystical constraints, who only sang
When nobody could hear your instressed song.
Your heart broke young to know of beauty moiled,
Soiled and despoiled by human frailties.
Were you afraid that God’s created works
Could so beguile your hot, outridden faith
As to seduce you from His Self and Son,
So must be railed round by ascetic rules
And abstinence?. Yet, inwardly, you knew
Such scapes could not be hid, denied, dismissed
By conscious effort of an honest mind;
And so you sang your secret rhapsodies of praise
Behind brain-tempered bars which bound your drab, dull days.
