| Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918. |
| |
| 1. For a Picture of St. Dorothea |
| |
| |
| I BEAR a basket lined with grass; | |
| I am so light, I am so fair, | |
| That men must wonder as I pass | |
| And at the basket that I bear, | |
| Where in a newly-drawn green litter | 5 |
| Sweet flowers I carry,—sweets for bitter. | |
| |
| Lilies I shew you, lilies none, | |
| None in Caesar’s gardens blow,— | |
| And a quince in hand,—not one | |
| Is set upon your boughs below; | 10 |
| Not set, because their buds not spring; | |
| Spring not, ’cause world is wintering. | |
| |
| But these were found in the East and South | |
| Where Winter is the clime forgot.— | |
| The dewdrop on the larkspur’s mouth | 15 |
| O should it then be quench`d not? | |
| In starry water-meads they drew | |
| These drops: which be they? stars or dew? | |
| |
| Had she a quince in hand? Yet gaze: | |
| Rather it is the sizing moon. | 20 |
| Lo, linkèd heavens with milky ways! | |
| That was her larkspur row.—So soon? | |
| Sphered so fast, sweet soul?—We see | |
| Nor fruit, nor flowers, nor Dorothy. | |
| | | See Notes. |
| |
| |
