Gerard Manley Hopkins. The Windhover.

 
I caught this morning morning's minion, king- 
    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding 
    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding 
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing 
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 
    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding 
    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding 
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! 
 
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
     
   No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

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 The Ceylon Press publishes a range of podcasts including The History Of Sri Lanka; the off-grid Jungle Diaries podcast; Island Stories, the podcast that explores what makes Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan; the Wild Isle Podcast: Stories from Sri Lanka’s Nature; as well as Poetry from The Jungle.  All these, along with eBooks, dictionaries, guides and companions can be found at www.theceylonpress.com, based at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy: www.flametreeestate.com.  
 

The copyright of this podcast recording is David Swarbrick @The Ceylon Press 2025. 

POETRY FROM THE JUNGLE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE COPYRIGHT CREDIT: 
 The copyright for Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem "The Windhover" is out of copyright, as Hopkins died in 1889, and the poem was published posthumously in 1918 in the first edition of his collected works.