Page:Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1918.djvu/91

72 A Brother and Sister

admire and sorrow! The heart's eye grieves

Discovering you, dark tramplers, tyrant years.

A juice rides rich through bluebells, in vine leaves,

And beauty's dearest veriest vein is tears.

Happy the father, mother of these! Too fast:

Not that, but thus far, all with frailty, blest

In one fair fall; but, for time's aftercast,

Creatures all heft, hope, hazard, interest.

And are they thus? The fine, the fingering beams

Their young delightful hour do feature down

That fleeted else like day-dissolvèd dreams

Or ringlet-race on burling Barrow brown.

She leans on him with such contentment fond

As well the sister sits, would well the wife;

His looks, the soul's own letters, see beyond,

Gaze on, and fall directly forth on life.

But ah, bright forelock, cluster that you are

Of favoured make and mind and health and youth,

Where lies your landmark, seamark, or soul's star?

There 's none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth.