Starlight

Wednesday, 9/2/20 at 9:37 PM

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Starlight Night”

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
     O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
     The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
     Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
     Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.

Buy then! bid then! — What? — Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
     Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn; withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
     Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

“Buy then!” shocks.

We move from apostrophe to the scene of an auction-house, gold coins raining?

Stars as infinite money, the capitalist sum-game, with no zero, but all.

“all a purchase, all is a prize.” I think of neuralink.

“the girl with the mousy hair,” “the silver screen.”

What are the “grey lawns”?

What are abeles?

White (silver) poplars.

and the word “withindoors.”

What is quickgold?

Like quicksilver.

Tags: hopkins sonnet
🏠