The Final Words of Gerard Manley Hopkins

[BobBradshaw]

The Final Words of Gerard Manley Hopkins


Who understood his poetry?
Not his Jesuit brothers.
Not his students who slumped
deeper into their seats.

Years before
he had taken comfort in the countryside,
purling water and blond sunlight,

the fields charged with God’s beauty
the way amber is suffused
with its own gold.

Dispatched to Dublin
he was a poet in a city of prose,
exhausted from the Jesuit workload.

By middle age,
he had failed as priest,
his words thick wax
in the ears of his listeners

As a teacher,
he had merely achieved
the teaching of Greek and Latin,
the grading of student papers.

He was never able to ignite passion
in his students. He was like a rainmaker
who coaxes only
dry lightning from the sky.

Depression and loneliness
weighed on him
like an adult’s winter coat
on a small child.

And was this how his life
was to end, fever
crossing his brow
his vision blurred--

to lie in bed
from typhus, his energy
emptying into the air
like a spent prayer?

Was this God's plan--
to teach him humility
once more? Through a flea?

Yet what are we to make
of Father Hopkins' dying words,
"I am so happy. I am so happy.
I loved my life."

[FranktheFrank]

Interesting Bob, I don't know the man
but now I have a start. I will look him up.
I know the Jesuits are considered the shock troops
of the Pope. Maybe not so much these days
as in the days of yore. You have condensed his life
admirably. I think we, hopefully, will be able to utter
the same words when at death's door.

[Michael (MV)]

A poem Bob would write, and indeed Bob did.

Re the expression in the title:

It never occurred to me before - the connotative difference between "final words" and "last words" - final isn't (and hopefully never will be) the last. Although I'm aware of the root "fin," when & wherever appropriate, I usually will apply an "e" to metamorph final into a finale - the "e" standing for eternity. A finale being not the end, not the close, not the last; instead, the exit to the entrance of exodus - the opening to Infinity, to forever -

That brings me to the finale of your poem.
However, Bob, I must recess now, but with the hope to resume soon.

Dying-
flat lines aren't finished lines -
Finale's the entrance from the exit to exodus

Michael

[Michael (MV)]

          
          (continued) 

He loved his life - Yes, he loved his life as a poet - although he was a Jesuit, he was a poet first & foremost, his real life a poet - and he was happy.

And that is what I make of the dying words of The Poet Hopkins that appear in the last stanza.




Michael (MV)

A poem Bob would write, and indeed Bob did.

Re the expression in the title:

It never occurred to me before - the connotative difference between "final words" and "last words" - final isn't (and hopefully never will be) the last. Although I'm aware of the root "fin," when & wherever appropriate, I usually will apply an "e" to metamorph final into a finale - the "e" standing for eternity. A finale being not the end, not the close, not the last; instead, the exit to the entrance of exodus - the opening to Infinity, to forever -

That brings me to the finale of your poem.
However, Bob, I must recess now, but with the hope to resume soon.

Dying-
flat lines aren't finished lines -
Finale's the entrance from the exit to exodus

Michael

[BobBradshaw]

I like your take, Michael