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Home  »  6. The Silver Jubilee

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

6. The Silver Jubilee

To James First Bishop of Shrewsbury on the 25th Year of his Episcopate July 28. 1876

1

THOUGH no high-hung bells or din

Of braggart bugles cry it in—

What is sound? Nature’s round

Makes the Silver Jubilee.

2

Five and twenty years have run

Since sacred fountains to the sun

Sprang, that but now were shut,

Showering Silver Jubilee.

3

Feasts, when we shall fall asleep,

Shrewsbury may see others keep;

None but you this her true,

This her Silver Jubilee.

4

Not today we need lament

Your wealth of life is some way spent:

Toil has shed round your head

Silver but for Jubilee.

5

Then for her whose velvet vales

Should have pealed with welcome, Wales,

Let the chime of a rhyme

Utter Silver Jubilee.