Maggie's Farm

Bird Dog, I share your love of Hopkins, whom I discovered when I was a college freshman. And you are right--Hopkins must be read aloud to appreciate the utter stunning beauty of his poetry--unlike anyone else's.

I memorized Hopkins' "Spring and Fall" as I had an elderly English professor, a dear woman, gentle Southern born and raised with a soft Georgia accent. Her contention was that all educated people should memorize key poems. She loved Houseman's "Cherry Tree" especially.

Of course, that was 1964--and there were still people who were educated and those who wanted to be. Thanks to her, I walked around mumbling verses to myself "sotto voce" from Hopkins, Years, Houseman, Keats, et al.

Today, she'd be ostracized by the politically correct imbeciles who dominate our universities--especially in the humanities.

Years later, when I was still toiling in the mental gulags of the Left, I worked for a progressive (aka, Marxist-lite) Catholic organization comprised of lots of polyester-clad feminist nuns and dweeby priests. I quoted the last stanza of "Kingfishers" ina report to some Franciscan board members. The feminists, nuns and laywomen, hit the ceiling and were so p..sed at me for quoting these horrid male patriarchal verses that they literally screamed and turned beet red. The "progressive" priests all hid in their respective offices. Hell hath no fury like a radical femininst encountering real beauty and true culture.

Yet, they all fade, and Hopkins, et al, will go on as long as there are ears to drink the sheer beauty of elegant verse and deep prayer.