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

64. The Woodlark

TEEVO cheevo cheevio chee:

O where, what can tháat be?

Weedio-weedio: there again!

So tiny a trickle of sóng-strain;

And all round not to be found

For brier, bough, furrow, or gréen ground

Before or behind or far or at hand

Either left either right

Anywhere in the súnlight.

Well, after all! Ah but hark—

‘I am the little wóodlark.
 . . . . . . . .

To-day the sky is two and two

With white strokes and strains of the blue
 . . . . . . . .

Round a ring, around a ring

And while I sail (must listen) I sing
 . . . . . . . .

The skylark is my cousin and he

Is known to men more than me
 . . . . . . . .

…when the cry within

Says Go on then I go on

Till the longing is less and the good gone

But down drop, if it says Stop,

To the all-a-leaf of the tréetop

And after that off the bough
 . . . . . . . .

I ám so véry, O soó very glad

That I dó thínk there is not to be had…
 . . . . . . . .

The blue wheat-acre is underneath

And the braided ear breaks out of the sheath,

The ear in milk, lush the sash,

And crush-silk poppies aflash,

The blood-gush blade-gash

Flame-rash rudred

Bud shelling or broad-shed

Tatter-tassel-tangled and dingle-a-dangled

Dandy-hung dainty head.
 . . . . . . . .

And down … the furrow dry

Sunspurge and oxeye

And laced-leaved lovely

Foam-tuft fumitory
 . . . . . . . .

Through the velvety wind V-winged

To the nest’s nook I balance and buoy

With a sweet joy of a sweet joy,

Sweet, of a sweet, of a sweet joy

Of a sweet—a sweet—sweet—joy.’