Page:Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1918.djvu/125

102 Dictionary', where the first sense of the verb given is to bring together the 'gathers' of a dress: and in this sense reeve is in common use.

p. 7. . Two school prize-poems exist; the date of the first, 'The Escorial', is Easter '60, which is before G. M. H. was sixteen years old. It is in Spenserian stanza: Early Poems the imperfect copy in another hand has the first 15 stanzas omitting the 9th, and the author has written on it his motto,, with an accompanying gloss to explain his allusions. Though wholly lacking the Byronic flush it looks as if influenced by the historical descriptions in 'Childe Harold', and might provide a quotation for a tourist's guide to Spain. The history seems competent, and the artistic knowledge precocious.

Here for a sample is the seventh stanza:

The second prize-poem, 'A Vision of Mermaids', is dated Xmas '62. The autograph of this, which is preserved, is headed by a very elaborate circular pen-and-ink drawing, 6 inches in diameter,—a sunset sea-piece with rocks and formal groups of mermaidens, five or six together, singing as they stand (apparently) half-immersed in the shallows as described

This poem is in 143 lines of heroics. It betrays the influence of Keats, and when I introduced the author to the public in Miles's book, I quoted from it, thinking it useful to show that his difficult later style was not due to inability to excel in established forms. The poem is altogether above the standard of school-prizes. I reprint the extract here:

Soon—as when Summer of his sister Spring

Crushes and tears the rare enjewelling,