WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: The Windhover

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

Today, we explore Hopkins's "The Windhover," a meditation on the flight of a kestrel. Hopkins opens our eyes to the wonder of a natural world that is richly layered with meaning.

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins. This is a poem that plays a lot with the concept of surface versus reality and that uses imagery in the natural world to reveal theological truths. The poem meditates on the flight of a castral, as well as the images of soil and embers in the sesthead. The whole of the poem could be validly understood at a surface level,

where what you see is what you get and the kestrel is just a kestrel. However, Hopkins is a master of polyvalence. He weaves biblical allusions throughout his descriptions of the physical world, showing that the objects he observes are more than what they appear to be. They also function at a symbolic level. For example, the kestrel acts as a symbol of Christ. Hopkins establishes this from the beginning of the sonnet, attaching royal imagery to the falcon, kingdom of daylight's doffin.

In the Bible, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of light are interchangeable terms. Additionally, as God the Father is the king of heaven, it naturally follows that the kestrel, symbolic of Christ, would be the dauphin or prince of the kingdom of daylight. Hopkins' identification of the kestrel, with the kingdom of light, thus calls Christ into mind within the very first line. The Kestrel's association with daylight also contains an allusion to Genesis. The first words of God recorded in the Bible are let there be light.

As Jesus is the word that spoke creation into being, his first act in the ordering of creation was to bring light into the world. Christ rules over the daylight being its creator. Hopkins makes use of the Genesis tradition, and attaches the royal nature of his Christological kestrel to the light that Jesus first created. With all that said, let's dive in. The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins. To Christ our Lord.

I caught this morning Morning's Minion, Kingdom 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 hung upon the sun. the rain of a wimpling wing in his ecstasy. Then off, off forth on a swing, as a skates' heels sweep 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 valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here buckle, and the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion times told lovelier, More dangerous, oh my chevalier.

No wonder of it. Shear plod makes plow down sily and shine. And blue bleak emberous, ah, my dear, fall, gall themselves, and gash gold vermilion. You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba. If you enjoyed this episode, consider following the Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to the poetry fix at gmail.com. Join me next week and we'll be reading Milton's Ode to Christ's Nativity.