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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  195. Mary Mother of Divine Grace, compared to the Air we breathe

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

195. Mary Mother of Divine Grace, compared to the Air we breathe

WILD air, world-mothering air,

Nestling me everywhere,

That each eyelash or hair

Girdles; goes home betwixt

The fleeciest, frailest-flixed

Snow-flake; that’s fairly mixed

With riddles, and is rife

In every least thing’s life;

This needful, never spent

And nursing element;

My more than meat and drink,

My meal at every wink;

This air which by life’s law

My lung must draw and draw

Now, but to breathe its praise,—

Minds me in many ways

Of her who not only

Gave God’s infinity,

Dwindled to infancy,

Welcome in womb and breast,

Birth, milk, and all the rest,

But mothers each new grace

That does now reach our race,

Mary Immaculate,

Merely a woman, yet

Whose presence, power is

Great as no goddess’s

Was deemèd, dreamèd; who

This one work has to do—

Let all God’s glory through,

God’s glory, which would go

Thro’ her and from her flow

Off, and no way but so.

I say that we are wound

With mercy round and round

As if with air: the same

Is Mary, more by name,

She, wild web, wondrous robe,

Mantles the guilty globe.

Since God has let dispense

Her prayers His providence.

Nay, more than almoner,

The sweet alms’ self is her

And men are meant to share

Her life as life does air.

If I have understood,

She holds high motherhood

Towards all our ghostly good,

And plays in grace her part

About man’s beating heart,

Laying like air’s fine flood

The death-dance in his blood;

Yet no part but what will

Be Christ our Saviour still.

Of her flesh He took flesh:

He does take, fresh and fresh,

Though much the mystery how,

Not flesh but spirit now,

And wakes, O marvellous!

New Nazareths in us,

Where she shall yet conceive

Him, morning, noon, and eve;

New Bethlems, and He born

There, evening, noon and morn

Bethlem or Nazareth,

Men here may draw like breath

More Christ, and baffle death;

Who, born so, comes to be

New self, and nobler me

In each one, and each one

More makes, when all is done,

Both God’s and Mary’s son.

Again look overhead

How air is azurèd.

O how! Nay do but stand

Where you can lift your hand

Skywards: rich, rich it laps

Round the four finger-gaps.

Yet such a sapphire-shot

Charged, steepèd sky will not

Stain light. Yea, mark you this:

It does no prejudice.

The glass-blue days are those

When every colour glows,

Each shape and shadow shows.

Blue be it: this blue heaven

The seven or seven times seven

Hued sunbeam will transmit

Perfect, nor alter it.

Or if there does some soft

On things aloof, aloft,

Bloom breathe, that one breath more

Earth is the fairer for.

Whereas did air not make

This bath of blue and slake

This fire, the sun would shake

A blear and blinding ball

With blackness bound, and all

The thick stars round him roll,

Flashing like flecks of coal,

Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt

In grimy vasty vault.

So God was God of old;

A mother came to mould

Those limbs like ours which are,

What must make our daystar

Much dearer to mankind:

Whose glory bare would blind

Or less would win man’s mind.

Through her we may see Him

Made sweeter, not made dim,

And her hand leaves His light

Sifted to suit our sight.

Be thou, then, O thou dear

Mother, my atmosphere;

My happier world wherein

To wend and meet no sin;

Above me, round me lie

Fronting my froward eye

With sweet and scarless sky;

Stir in my ears, speak there

Of God’s love, O live air,

Of patience, penance, prayer;

World-mothering air, air wild,

Wound with thee, in thee isled,

Fold home, fast fold thy child.