Page:Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1918.djvu/50

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Look, foot to forelock, how all things suit! he

Is strung by duty, is strained to beauty,

And brown-as-dawning-skinned

With brine and shine and whirling wind.

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O his nimble finger, his gnarled grip!

Leagues, leagues of seamanship

Slumber in these forsaken

Bones, this sinew, and will not waken.

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He was but one like thousands more,

Day and night I deplore

My people and born own nation,

Fast foundering own generation.

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I might let bygones be—our curse

Of ruinous shrine no hand or, worse,

Robbery's hand is busy to

Dress, hoar-hallowèd shrines unvisited;

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Only the breathing temple and fleet

Life, this wildworth blown so sweet,

These daredeaths, ay this crew, in

Unchrist, all rolled in ruin—

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Deeply surely I need to deplore it,

Wondering why my master bore it,

The riving off that race

So at home, time was, to his truth and grace