Gerald Manley Hopkins

I found an old copy of Gerald Manley Hopkins' poems on my mother's bookshelf when I was visiting my parents in Alaska. She says he is one of her favorite poets, and this surprised and delighted me, because he is one of my favorite poets too; but I did not discover him till way, way after I became a Catholic.

I copied this stanza from her book; it has been going through my head recently -- perhaps because of the salvation history we have been reading and pondering recently? or because the children recently watched Prince of Egypt? He wrote it when he was very young, possibly still a teenager, and it is part of a longer poem, which I could not find on the internet.

Go then: I am contented here to lie.
Take Canaan with your sword and with your bow.
Rise: match your strength with monstrous Talmai
At Kirjath-Arba: go.
Sure, this is Nile; I sicken, I know not why,
And faint as though to die.

I discovered Hopkins through Mary Daly's Diagramming Book, about six years ago. I like her whole book; but the last pages, where she discusses Hopkins through diagramming, are delightful. She has written a homage to Hopkins in verse.