Inversnaid

Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844 (Stratford, London) – 1889 (Dublin)



This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew,
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 28, 2023

34 sec read
378

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 644
Words 115
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Reverend Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S. more…

All Gerard Manley Hopkins poems | Gerard Manley Hopkins Books

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1 Comment
  • kyle_k
    Love this poem.
    LikeReply3 years ago

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"Inversnaid" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/15864/inversnaid>.

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Who wrote the poem ״Invictus״?
A Sylvia Plath
B Oscar Wilde
C Thomas Hardy
D William Ernest Henley