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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  Morning, Midday, and Evening Sacrifice

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

Morning, Midday, and Evening Sacrifice

 
THE DAPPLED die-away
Cheek and wimpled lip,
The gold-wisp, the airy-gray
Eye, all in fellowship—
This, all this, beauty blooming,        5
This, all this, freshness fuming,
Give God while worth consuming.
 
Both thought and thew now bolder
And told by Nature tower;
Head, heart, hand, heel, and shoulder        10
That beat and breathe in power—
This pride of prime’s enjoyment
Take as for tool, not toy meant,
And hold at Christ’s employment.
 
The vault and scope and schooling,        15
And mastery in the mind,
In silk ash, kept from cooling,
And ripest under rind—
What Death half lifts the latch of,
What Hell stalks towards the snatch of,        20
Your offering, with despatch, of!