The Windhover
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89).  Poems.  1918.

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom 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 rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps 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 valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

 Editors comments
By “Windhover’ Hopkins means the common kestrel.The poem attempts to evoke in words the bird’s extraordinary capacity to absolutely command the air. The bird swoops, dives and kills, hovers and hangs as if gravity counted for nothing and it does this with such grace and elegance as to leave the watcher breathless.
Read this poem slowly, with your mind fixed on the kestrel’s effortless grace in the air, it’s astonishing standstill hovering and you’ll feel Hopkin’s words themselves attempt to express his mind’s reaction to this magnificent display. He is attempting the impossible; to express the inexpressible. He very nearly succeeds.
An extraordinarily accomplished poem.
Ira Maine, Poetry Editor