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

6. The Silver Jubilee

To James First Bishop of Shrewsbury on the 25th Year of his Episcopate July 28. 1876

THOUGH no high-hung bells or din

Of braggart bugles cry it in—

What is sound? Nature’s round

Makes the Silver Jubilee.

Five and twenty years have run

Since sacred fountains to the sun

Sprang, that but now were shut,

Showering Silver Jubilee.

Feasts, when we shall fall asleep,

Shrewsbury may see others keep;

None but you this her true,

This her Silver Jubilee.

Not today we need lament

Your wealth of life is some way spent:

Toil has shed round your head

Silver but for Jubilee.

Then for her whose velvet vales

Should have pealed with welcome, Wales,

Let the chime of a rhyme

Utter Silver Jubilee.