I have read the following poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins (listed below with ratings):
- “Carrion Comfort”: The speaker describes his despair and wrestling with God. Rating: 4/5
- “God’s Grandeur”: The speaker lauds the inexhaustible glory with which God has endowed nature, which is not diminished by the actions of people. Rating: 2/5
- “Inversnaid”: The speaker expresses his desire that the wilderness remain present using the example of a river. Rating: 1.5/5
- “I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark”: The speaker laments the metaphorical darkness he finds himself in, a darkness which he believes is barely better than the darkness of hell. Rating: 2.5/5
- “No Worst, There is None”: The speaker expresses the agony of religious despair and the inward torture that humans can experience. Rating: 3/5
- “Pied Beauty”: The speaker praises the ever-beautiful God for the beauty of “dappled,” or spotted/patched things. Rating: 1.5/5
- “Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves”: In this poem, a seer reads some leaves to prophesy about the Apocalypse and the condition of humanity. Rating: 2/5
- “Spring”: The uses the beauty of spring to frame his plea to God to preserve young minds. Rating: 1/5
- “That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection”: The speaker says that everything is done away with by nature but takes comfort in the knowledge that humans will live again in the Resurrection of Christ. Rating: 3/5
- “Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord”: The speaker asks God why he allows him to suffer and sinners to thrive, all while affirming that God is just. Rating: 3/5
- “To R. B.”: This is Hopkins’ poem about the poetic process. He explains that poetry begins with a spark of inspiration, is formed in the mind of the poet, and finally comes out in the form of a poem, which may or may not be any good. Rating: 1/5
- “The Windhover”: The speaker realizes the superior vastness of God’s glory in light of his observation of a hawk. Rating: 1/5
