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

63. ‘The furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down’

THE FURL of fresh-leaved dogrose down

His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun

Had swarthed about with lion-brown

Before the Spring was done.

His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,

With hempen strands in spray—

Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks—fall’n off their ranks,

Swung down at a disarray.

Or like a juicy and jostling shock

Of bluebells sheaved in May

Or wind-long fleeces on the flock

A day off shearing day.

Then over his turnèd temples—here—

Was a rose, or, failing that,

Rough-Robin or five-lipped campion clear

For a beauty-bow to his hat,

And the sunlight sidled, like dewdrops, like dandled diamonds

Through the sieve of the straw of the plait.
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