Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THAT NATURE IS A HERACLITEAN FIRE & OF THE COMFORT OF THE RESURRECTION, by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THAT NATURE IS A HERACLITEAN FIRE & OF THE COMFORT OF THE RESURRECTION, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows
Last Line: Is immortal diamond.
Variant Title(s): That Nature Is A Heraclitean Fire And Of The Comfort Of The Resurrecti
Subject(s): Jesus Christ; Nature; Religion; Resurrection, The; Theology


CLOUD-PUFFBALL, torn tufts, tossed pillows ' flaunt forth,
then chevy on an air -
Built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs they throng; the glitter in marches.
glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, ' wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long ' lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ' ropes, wrestles,
beats earth bare
Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut peel parches
Squandering ooze to squeezed ' dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches
Squadroned masks and manmarks ' treadmire toil there
Footfretted in it. Million-fueled, ' nature's bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearest ' to her, her clearest-selved spark
Man, how fast his firedint, ' his mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark
Drowned. O pity and indig ' nation! Manshape, that shone
Sheer off, disseveral, a star, ' death blots black out; nor mark
Is any of him at all so stark
But vastness blurs and time ' beats level. Enough! the Resurrection,
A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, ' joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam. ' Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; ' world's wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, ' since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ' patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.






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