Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WINTER WITH THE GULF STREAM, by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WINTER WITH THE GULF STREAM, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The boughs, the boughs are bare enough
Last Line: Drops out and all our day is done.
Subject(s): Winter


The boughs, the boughs are bare enough
But earth has never felt the snow.
Frost-furred our ivies are and rough
With bills of rime the brambles shew.
The hoarse leaves crawl on hissing ground
Because the sighing wind is low.
But if the rain-blasts be unbound
And from dank feathers wring the drops
The clogged brook runs with choking sound
Kneading the mounded mire that stops
His channel under clammy coats
Of foliage fallen in the copse.
A simple passage of weak notes
Is all the winter bird dare try.
The bugle moon by daylight floats
So glassy white about the sky,
So like a berg of hyaline,
And pencilled blue so daintily,
I never saw her so divine.
But through black branches, rarely drest
In scarves of silky shot and shine,
The webbed and the watery west
Where yonder crimson fireball sits
Looks laid for feasting and for rest.
I see long reefs of violets
In beryl-covered fens so dim,
A gold-water Pactolus frets
Its brindled wharves and yellow brim,
The waxen colours weep and run,
And slendering to his burning rim
Into the flat blue mist the sun
Drops out and all our day is done.





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