The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Poem, Summary & Analysis)

 

The Windhover

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

(Poem, Summary & Analysis) 

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

 

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

 

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Summary

In the poem, the speaker of looks up and sees a windhover (another name for the common kestrel, a kind of falcon). Windhovers have the ability to hover in the air and scan the ground for prey. The speaker watches the windhover ride the wind like a horse, and then wheel around in an arc like a skater, then hover some more. The beauty and power of the bird amazes him.

Analysis

The opening of the poem is about a bird – but one is struck immediately by the characterization accorded to the falcon, which Hopkins tell us he caught. He saw a bird. But “caught” is stronger than “saw”, and suggests that he seized it with his eyes and held it with the force of his feeling. And he did not “seize” merely a bird, the falcon becomes so meaningful to him that he conceives of it as a personality. He calls it “morning morning’s minion.” The phrase “morning’s minion” expresses that the bird is the favourite of the morning. “Minion” is associated with court relationship, and this idea is carried into the next line where the bird is further characterized as the prince (dauphin of the kingdom of daylight, i.e., of the morning)

King-dom of daylight’s dauphin

dapple-dawn-drawn falcon.

Further, Hopkins describes morning to be a “dapple-dawn”. Here the poet’s excitement is visible as he divides and arranges single word “kingdom” into two lines. The poet’s excitement also begins to come through in the speeded-up rhythm as he shortens the normal “dappled-dawn” (past participle used as adjective + noun) and intensifies the natural tendency to elide the final “d” by eliminating it as it happens in our everyday discourse. The speeded-up rhythm shows that the poet is in a rush to capture the moment into words before it passes.

“Dappled,” of course, means to become variegated with patches of colour and refers here probably to the scattered clouds catching the first light. But then the unique structural position of the word “drawn” may mean that this dawn has either (1) attracted the falcon and brought it out of its nest or abode, or (2) the falcon seems pulled along by the movement of the clouds, or (3) as it hovers, the bird seems to be drawn against the dappled sky. This type of ambiguity occurs very frequently in Hopkins’ poetry. It not only enriches the content with multiple suggestion but also makes the interpretation quite challenging:

in his riding

of the rolling level underneath him steady

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy.

The description of the bird is tinged with the qualities of nobility. It gives way to a delineation of the falcon’s movement. Here the lines are charged with Hopkins’ excitement as he responds to what is taking place before him. At first, the bird is quite literally “riding” the wind with such a mastery that it is not thrown about by the ‘rolling level”. Rather, the brilliant paradox of “rolling level underneath him” seems to suggest that the bird makes the air flat and steady beneath it. And when the bird flies, it seems to “stride” upward as it spirals in a circle controlled by wings that guide its “ecstatic” flight. “Wimpling wing” is of course a bold phrase in the poem, but “one should not be surprised by this boldness in a writer who exhibits linguistic originality in almost every piece of his literary writing.” A wimple is a covering of cloth over the head and arranged round the neck and face. It was worn by women in middle-ages and is still used by some nuns. A “wimpling wing,” then, refers to a wing that ripples and curves in flight.

The off, off forth on swing

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow, bend…

The next moment the bird surged forward on his flight as it was given a freer movement by the controlled spiral. Hopkins likens the swooping or surging flight of the bird to the smooth and swift gliding movement of a skater on a bow-bend on the snow-covered mountain.

the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind.

The onward thrust (the hurl) and the smooth movement (gliding) overcame the strong current of air. The two motions of the bird are then keyed by two words: “hurl” and “gliding”. Whether by “hurling” itself (compare “striding” of line three and “off forth on swing” of line five) into the wind, or by moving gracefully as it “glides” with the wind, (compare “riding” of line two and “rung upon the rein” of line four) the falcon is the master. The attempt of the “big wind” to overcome it has been checked or turned aside (rebuffed). “Rebuffed” is again a bold word, one sense of which, although rare, is to “blow back”. If Hopkins was aware of this meaning it is particularly effective in its relationship to the wind; but even the more usual connotation of “rebuff” as “snub” would carry interesting overtones for the principal meaning.

My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird – the achieve of, the

mastery of the thing!

When the poet watched the falcon, his heart was in hiding. However, he was moved deeply by the achievement and attainment that had occurred before him. Here the shortening of “achievement” to achieve” (in line No. 8) gives us the feeling of excitement.

As to the “heart in hiding”, it is obvious that there would be no reason for the poet to hide physically. The phrase “in hiding” is aging a shortened syntactic form of “in hiding to nothing.” Here, it means that the poet as a priest felt that he was a complete failure in his profession. He realized that in comparison with the free flight and unfettered scope of the bird, his heart is in effect hidden from such activity.

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here.

Buckle!....

There is a shift from the past tense to the present tense in the Sestet. It suggests that whatever the poet felt because of the stirring of his heart has freshened up his spirit with awareness. In these lines we see a rush of words (brute beauty, valour, act, air, pride, plume, etc.) as the poet tries to capture the qualities of the falcon, and through him wants to delineate the patterns and inner designs of the Creator. The first manifestation of this inner design was natural or physical beauty (“Brute beauty”); then valour (a word which establishes relationship between the princely “dauphin” above and the “chevalier” in line No. 11); then action (Hopkins uses the shortened form of the word, i.e., act); then “air” “pride” and “plume”. The poet introduced the qualities of “air” “pride” and “plume” after an exclamatory interjection – to intensify the effect of excitement. Here, the word “air” may be interpreted in two ways. Air offers another ambiguity. It can be taken as the atmosphere through which the bird has been flying, but its neighboring word “pride” offers a more attractive alternative, suggesting that the “air” of the bird in its proud mastery of the dawn wind is rather its manner or appearance (as we say, “he has a proud air about him.”) This would fit better with “plume” also, since the latter not only denotes the plumage of the bird, but also connotes the headdress of both dauphin and chevalier; and it is reminiscent of the spirit of knighthood and chivalry that has coloured other passages of the poem.

Whatever the word “air” means, these qualities are representative of the details of the first eight lines. Then we are faced with the two most controversial words in the poem – “here/Buckle!” which category of adverbs “here” belong to is not clear. It may refer to adverb of place or adverb of time. If it has been used as an adverb of place, it would refer to the poet’s heart. Which has “stirred for a bird.” If it is employed as the adverb of time, it would mean “now” that is “the flight of the falcon.” “Buckle” can either mean “join together”, “grapple” “struggle” or “conversely” “collapse” or “fall apart”.

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion.

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! ...

These possibilities of meaning lead to two principle alternative reading, the first as follows: the appearance, action, spirit and environment of the falcon suddenly come together (“buckle” as “join”) for the poet in a heart that has been out of touch with (“hidden” from) such things, AND; (the capitals are important for emphasis) as the combined elements that he has observed strike him suddenly and fully when the union has been effected (“then”); it is as though the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts, and the flashing of the bird in the sunlit dawn is intensified to the point of “breaking” forth (compare “gash” below) into flaming beauty (Fire: compare “embers” below), many times (note the hyperbole of “a billion”) “lovelier” than he at first realized, and correspondingly “more dangerous” to a heart that might wish to remain hidden and untempted by such physical beauty. Consistent with the “dauphin” and the “plume” images above, the bird then becomes a knight addressed by the poet in the exclamatory “O my chevalier!” The second, and preferable, possibility takes “buckle” in the sense of “collapse”: the physical beauty the poet has been observing suddenly collapses at the moment when he has seized it most fully with his senses. The collapse let it be noted, follows immediately on the “stirring” of a heart. This stirring has had a seismic effect: it has shaken open or cut through (compare “gash” below) the mass of physical beauty, AND (the capitals imply that this is the important thing) as the mass “then” buckles, the fire of the spiritual beauty within “breaks from” it, just as a fire within a building breaks out when the walls buckle under the force of the inner flame. But this is no physical fire: it is a light, an insight revealing the significance of an overwhelming spiritual beauty that can be fully seen only when the physical has split open to reveal it. And this revelation is incomparably (“a billion/Times”) more “lovely” than is the merely exciting beauty of the physical scene before him. It is an inner refined beauty revealed through the gross, material outer beauty (the “Brute beauty”), and it involves a correspondingly “more dangerous” experience since a greater risk must be assumed in penetrating to the mystery of the universe as reflected in its external manifestations; the spiritual realization always involves greater hazards for the individual soul than does the physical. Hopkins then closes the tercet with his final gesture to the falcon that has made the realization possible his “chevalier”.

In fact, Hopkins wanted to convey both the religious interpretations in the minimum structures possible. That is why, perhaps, he fuses into a single word so many interpretations corresponding to the structure and texture of the poem.

No wonder of it: Sheer plod makes plough down sillion.

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash-gold vermillion.

These lines bring an unexpected turn. “No wonder of it” suggests that the wonderful thing Hopkins has been describing is not so surprising or wonderful. He goes on to give us two examples from common experience: (1) The mere plodding of a ploughman as he pushes his plough down the “sillion” or furrow produces a brightness on his ploughshare. In the same way fidelity in religious life produces a spiritual brightness in the soul. (2) The embers of a fire may appear to be dying, they may look bleak in their faded blue colour; but it is precisely then that these embers fall and bruise themselves, so that they break open and reveal a hidden fire of “gold vermillion.” The poet’s soul, too, is “blue-bleak” or seemingly lifeless. But through suffering and mortification for the sake of Christ, the poet would experience a spiritual glory. The idea of plodding has been foregrounded by employing the abbreviated word “sheer plod” (not “ploughed”) as in “achieve” (line eight). Then the unique syntactic structures of the compounds “blue-black” and “gold-vermillion” help confirm the reality of the superficial ecstatic experience. The lines balance the description of a superficially ecstatic experience with the inner response.

So far, we have seen the rhythmical effects of Hopkins’ sonnet. The most significant thing which remains to be done, is to point out the details of the application of sprung rhythm as the sonnet develops. The first line is metrical in its iambic pentameter regularity. The reader, however, is struck by the devices for sound by the unexpected division of “kingdom” (king - dom) at the end of the line. The line has five-stress pattern expected of a sonnet (in accordance with Hopkinsian principle of scansion). In line two, we find sixteen syllables. However, the five-stress agreement has been maintained. Hopkins also indicated marking for the poem. The remarkable thing, here, is that a compound comprising three words and functioning as an adjective carries a single stress only. Hopkins employs it as an attributive for the Falcon. The line increases the speed of feeling and anticipates the mood of excitement. The third line also consists of sixteen syllables, while line four has three conventional anapests:

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how the rung upon the rein of a Wimpling wing

Line four shows Hopkins’ eccentric manner of writing to maintain the principle of scansion in his poetic discourse. Fourth line leads directly into line five. Then line nine presents a unique problem with its six nouns:

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride plume here.

Hopkins employs connective word “and” between “Brute beauty” and “valour,” and then between “valour” and “act.” It shows that the poet is counting the attributes without any haste, but suddenly, after the interjection “oh,” he drops the connectives and rushes towards the phrase “here/Buckle!” The result is that “air-pride-plume” becomes a triplet having a single accent.

The Sestet can be divided into two tercets. The rhythm of the first three lines reflects the excitement of the new discovery made by the poet. This discovery leads to another. One might expect that the contrast between the first tercet and the second tercet will be followed by a quieter statement. The second tercet, however, thwarts the expectations. The second tercet is as forceful as the previous one. It holds the mood of what has gone before and support the real one.

So far, the rhyme sounds are concerned, the sonnet offers interesting differences from those we have read earlier. In the present sonnet, all the rhyme sounds of the octave involve an ‘ing’ alternating between the single syllable structured words of “king-wing-swing-thing” and the two syllable structured words of “riding-striding-gliding-hiding.” The sestet has the rhyme sound cdc, dcd. The end rhymes are given support by repetition and medial rhyme. The ‘ing’ ending in the first line of the octave is anticipated by the repetition of “morning morning’s” (Genitive Phrase). The medial repetitions of this type are supplemented by medial rhymes like “dawn-drawn,” stirred-bird,” “sheer” etc. The alliteration is very prominent in the sonnet. A few particularly interesting applications of alliteration can be noted in the following line –

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king –

dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding.

of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding.

In line one, in addition to the alliterative ‘m’ sounds, the opening and close of the verse are linked by the hard ‘C’ (K) of “Caught” and the ‘K’ of “king”. The assonance in the lines is in the sounds of the words “caught,” “morning,” “morning’s,” “dauphin,” “dawn,” etc. To maintain the alliterative rhythmic effect, Hopkins uses “morning” in two different ways – as an adverb of time and as an adjective. The sonnet shows Hopkins’ perfect rhetorical mastery and makes it different from other nineteenth century sonnets.