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As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying, Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins | 1918
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