Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

10. The Lantern out of Doors

SOMETIMES a lantern moves along the night,

That interests our eyes. And who goes there?

I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,

With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?

Men go by me whom either beauty bright

In mould or mind or what not else makes rare:

They rain against our much-thick and marsh air

Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.

Death or distance soon consumes them: wind

What most I may eye after, be in at the end

I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.

Christ minds: Christ’s interest, what to avow or amend

There, éyes them, heart wánts, care haúnts, foot fóllows kínd,

Their ránsom, théir rescue, ánd first, fást, last friénd.