Sárospataki Füzetek 18. (2014)

2014 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Frank Sawyer: Gerard Manley Hopkins: "Christ plays in ten thousand places"

Frank Sawyer

Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm; Father11 and fondler of heart thou hast wrung;

Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.

As this stanza notes, the attributes of God, as all-powerful, may catch and wreck us in a storm, yet they include love and mercy. This is not merely a matter of objective theological description, the poet says, but a matter of saying “I found it [so]”. Hopkins is busy with both head and heart in this quest for the complete God in relation to a complete picture of the meaning of human existence and the many experiences we undergo. The poet finds an answer: God is “lightning and love”, “winter and warm” and “most merciful” even when we experience the “dark” side of God. In the next stanza Hopkins mentions that Gods ‘melting’ and ‘mastering’ of us can come in a “crash” as with Paul, or in a more “lingering sweet” way as with Augustine - “but be adored, but be adored King” (stanza 10). In spite of our questions, let adoration remain, says the poet-priest - for even in darkness and suffering, God is working out our salvation.

We leave this poem at this point but we have seen enough to understand and perhaps identify with Hopkins’ quest. When we turn to some of Hopkins’ shorter poems of praise we find a kind of impressionist effervescence which displays originality of intention and achievement.

IV. Some shorter poems

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;12 It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed.13 Why do men then now not reck14 his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And, for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

11 The contrast here is that of a father who rules us but also shows us love and compassion.

12 In a letter to Robert Bridges, Hopkins says he was thinking of foil as'tinsel','metal leaf','sheet lightening'and forked lightening'.

13 For example, oil from crushed olives.

14 'Reck'here means to'reckon with'. That substantiates the second meaning of'charged', as a duty.

86

Sárospataki Füzetek 17. évfolyam I 2014 I 1