March 7, 2025 • 11 mins
Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry can be confusing at first glance, and he faced consistent criticism for his style of poetry the world just wasn't ready for at the time. His friend and posthumous editor Robert Bridges even wrote an essay called "The Oddities of Genius" about how puzzling Hopkins' work can be.
His poem "Inversnaid" is a prime example. As Hopkins contemplates a small stream by the name Inversnaid, he makes use of wonderfully unexpected words that seemingly require a glossary to understand. Like many of Hopkins' works, this poem celebrates the goodness and beauty of the ordinary world and how God is always found in the details. He poses the question: What would the world be without this stream and its taken-for-granted beauty?
Music from this episode was from EVOE, Dear Gravity, Ardie Son, and IamDayLight. Sound design and editing is by Nate Sheppard.
For more poetry from the Rabbit Room, subscribe to our newsletter at Rabbitroompoetry.substack.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:01):
I'm Andy Patton and this is Rhyme and Reason from
the Rabbit Room. Each season we look at the life
and work of one poet, starting with Gerard Manley Hopkins.
(00:31):
A few years ago, my wife and I were walking
along the West Highland Way in Scotland, in the middle
of a grueling stretch of trail along the shore of
Loch Lomond. We came to a tiny village called Inversnaid.
It was the off season and the hotel was closed,
so we filled our water bottles up at the tap
outside and sat on the bridge, letting our feet hang
(00:54):
over the edge above a small stream as we ate lunch.
Beneath us, the noisy stream bounced its way down the
hillside to Loch Lomond, and we thought about Hopkins and
the poem that he wrote about that very stream. Now
here is Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins. This darksome burn
(01:24):
horseback brown. His roll rock high road. Roaring down in coupe.
And in combe. The fleece of his foam flutes and
low to the lake falls home. A wind puff bonnet
of fawn froth. Turns and swindles over the broth of
a pool. So pitch black fell. Frowning, it rounds and
(01:47):
rounds despair to drowning. Deck'd with dew. Dappled with dew
are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through.
Wiry heath packs Flitches of fern and the bead bonny
ash that sits over the burn. What would the world be?
Once bereft of wet and of wildness? Let them be left. Oh,
(02:13):
let them be left. Wildness and wet. Long live the
weeds and the wilderness. Yet. This poem can be confusing
at first glance, but we can let that confusion be
our guide into what it takes to understand what Hopkins
is doing in his poetry, which can be hard to understand,
(02:37):
to put it mildly. And that actually didn't bother him
very much. Rather, he saw readers initial confusion as just
a bump on the path to a deeper understanding of
what he was up to in his poetry, but he
didn't think it was worth changing anything for. Hopkins was
always just going to write the way he was going
(02:57):
to write. Once, one of his friends wrote him a
letter and he said he was confused by one of
his poems and didn't like it, and actually that he
would not read it again for any sum of money.
In his reply, Hopkins wrote I cannot think of altering anything.
(03:18):
Why should I? This friend was Robert Bridges, who would
go on to be the poet laureate of England and
Hopkins posthumous editor. And bridges later wrote an essay about
how confusing Hopkins work can be called The Oddities of Genius.
(03:42):
In the essay, bridges is pretty rough on his old friend,
and he writes about the way Hopkins seemed to deliberately
leave words out of sentences, intending to create an aesthetic effect.
But in bridges view, actually only making the poems less accessible.
Bridges wrote in the article. And I love this turn
of phrase that quote. As regards oddity, the poet was
(04:06):
himself fully alive to it, but was not sufficiently aware
of his obscurity. In other words, Hopkins knew he was
putting things in new ways in novel language, but he
couldn't understand why no one could understand him if he
(04:28):
strayed from the beaten path, why couldn't others follow the
trail he blazed? Bridges also draws attention to the unconventional
things Hopkins did with his rhymes, saying, quote, the rhymes
where they are peculiar are often repellent, and so far
from adding charm to the verse that they appear as obstacles. Ouch.
(04:51):
Bridges quotes Hopkins responding to challenges about his rhymes by
saying this some of my rhymes I regret, but they
are past changing. Grubs in amber. And there are only
a few of these. Others are unassailable. Some others again.
There are which Malignity may munch at, but the muses
will love. And there's a turn of phrase for you
(05:12):
Malignity may munch at, but the muses will love. He's
basically saying, okay, you don't like my rhymes, but hey,
the muses do. Hopkins is unrepentant. This is a poet
who knows what he's doing and who believes in what
he's doing, even in the face of nearly uniform criticism,
(05:36):
which is all well and good. But the question remains
for us what are we supposed to do with how
difficult these poems can seem? Well, as with any great
work of art, you got to give yourself time. It
takes time for the subtler beauty and wisdom in the
(05:59):
work to make an impression on us, or to even
register to us. I've heard it said that you need
to read any poem of Hopkins 12 times. When you
hear how he responded to his friend's criticism, you get
the sense that he didn't really want his poems to
be understood at one glance. He wanted to let the
(06:23):
poems linger inside people and release their beauty and their
meaning slowly over time. And that seems to be the
way it works. In the first few readings, you just
take in the words and enjoy the sound of them
and the way they roll against each other. Around the
(06:44):
sixth or seventh reading, you start to see the things
he's saying in his own weird way, and by the
10th or the 12th reading, it seems like the only
way it could have ever been said. Just like this.
Just these strange and beautiful words. Just this way and
no other. Let's get back to the poem. In Inversnaid
(07:14):
Hopkins pairs these wonderful and unexpected words together to set
the scene. The stream is a darksome burn. The rocks
down the hillside are the roll rock high road over
which the stream tumbles, frothing to foam. And there's a
sense in which this poem just needs a bit of
a glossary. The groins of the braes are the sides
(07:35):
of the hills. The fawn froth is the dear coloured foam.
Trapped in eddies in the running stream. And to be
dyed with dew is an old Scottish way of saying
sprinkled a heath pack is a clump of the heather
that blankets the Scottish Highlands, and the whole poem, and
many other of Hopkins's most beloved poems, simply celebrates the
(07:57):
goodness and beauty of the ordinary world. For Hopkins, God
is always in the details of the world that he's made.
The poem poses the question, what would the world be
without this stream, this stream and its everyday. Taken for granted. Beauty.
(08:22):
The thing about the stream beside the Inversnaid Hotel is
that it's not even big. It's small. This is not
Langston Hughes. Muddy Mississippi. And yet the poem asks us.
What would the world be without this wet and wildness
that Hopkins has dedicated 16 lines to? The details of
(08:43):
one stream, the color of it, the sound of it,
the vegetation above the stream, the way the foam spins
on the surface is his answer to the question. The
last lines of the poem are carved into the Canongate
Wall of the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh. It reads
(09:03):
let them be left. Oh, let them be left. Wildness
and wet. Long live the weeds and the wilderness. Yet.
And now, with all that in mind, here is Inversnaid
read by Heidi Johnston.
S2 (09:38):
This darksome burn horseback brown. His roll rock high road
roaring down in cup. And in comb the fleece of
his foam floats and low to the lake falls home.
A wind puffed bonnet of fawn froth turns and twiddles
over the broth of a pool. So pitch black fell, Fail. Frowning,
(09:58):
it rounds and rounds despair to drowning. Tagged with dew.
Dappled with dew. Or the groins of the braes that
the brook treads through. Wiry heath packs flitches of fern
and the bead bonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be? Once bereft of wet and
(10:21):
of wildness? Let them be left. Oh, let them be left.
Wildness and wet. Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
S3 (10:53):
I'll say it. The music from this episode was from if.
S4 (10:58):
I wait, my dear.
S5 (10:59):
Gravity a Soaring Swan sister by Aarti Sun.
S3 (11:04):
A Soaring Swan sister by O.d. Sun.
S5 (11:11):
Good, but without the sassy exasperation. Okay. Sunday afternoon by
I am daylight.
S4 (11:18):
By I am daylight.
S3 (11:20):
And pure land by evil. The sound design and editing
is by Nate Shepard. You can get more poetry from
the Rabbit Room.
S4 (11:27):
By subscribing to our newsletter.
S5 (11:31):
Subscribe link.
S3 (11:32):
By subscribing to our newsletter.
S5 (11:34):
Yeah. Good job. Good job.
S4 (11:37):
Did we just.
S3 (11:37):
Listen to the part where we laugh a lot?
S5 (11:40):
Please, let's try to get through the rest of the world.
S4 (11:43):
No, listen.
I'm Andy Patton and this is Rhyme and Reason from
the Rabbit Room. Each season we look at the life
and work of one poet, starting with Gerard Manley Hopkins.
(00:31):
A few years ago, my wife and I were walking
along the West Highland Way in Scotland, in the middle
of a grueling stretch of trail along the shore of
Loch Lomond. We came to a tiny village called Inversnaid.
It was the off season and the hotel was closed,
so we filled our water bottles up at the tap
outside and sat on the bridge, letting our feet hang
(00:54):
over the edge above a small stream as we ate lunch.
Beneath us, the noisy stream bounced its way down the
hillside to Loch Lomond, and we thought about Hopkins and
the poem that he wrote about that very stream. Now
here is Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins. This darksome burn
(01:24):
horseback brown. His roll rock high road. Roaring down in coupe.
And in combe. The fleece of his foam flutes and
low to the lake falls home. A wind puff bonnet
of fawn froth. Turns and swindles over the broth of
a pool. So pitch black fell. Frowning, it rounds and
(01:47):
rounds despair to drowning. Deck'd with dew. Dappled with dew
are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through.
Wiry heath packs Flitches of fern and the bead bonny
ash that sits over the burn. What would the world be?
Once bereft of wet and of wildness? Let them be left. Oh,
(02:13):
let them be left. Wildness and wet. Long live the
weeds and the wilderness. Yet. This poem can be confusing
at first glance, but we can let that confusion be
our guide into what it takes to understand what Hopkins
is doing in his poetry, which can be hard to understand,
(02:37):
to put it mildly. And that actually didn't bother him
very much. Rather, he saw readers initial confusion as just
a bump on the path to a deeper understanding of
what he was up to in his poetry, but he
didn't think it was worth changing anything for. Hopkins was
always just going to write the way he was going
(02:57):
to write. Once, one of his friends wrote him a
letter and he said he was confused by one of
his poems and didn't like it, and actually that he
would not read it again for any sum of money.
In his reply, Hopkins wrote I cannot think of altering anything.
(03:18):
Why should I? This friend was Robert Bridges, who would
go on to be the poet laureate of England and
Hopkins posthumous editor. And bridges later wrote an essay about
how confusing Hopkins work can be called The Oddities of Genius.
(03:42):
In the essay, bridges is pretty rough on his old friend,
and he writes about the way Hopkins seemed to deliberately
leave words out of sentences, intending to create an aesthetic effect.
But in bridges view, actually only making the poems less accessible.
Bridges wrote in the article. And I love this turn
of phrase that quote. As regards oddity, the poet was
(04:06):
himself fully alive to it, but was not sufficiently aware
of his obscurity. In other words, Hopkins knew he was
putting things in new ways in novel language, but he
couldn't understand why no one could understand him if he
(04:28):
strayed from the beaten path, why couldn't others follow the
trail he blazed? Bridges also draws attention to the unconventional
things Hopkins did with his rhymes, saying, quote, the rhymes
where they are peculiar are often repellent, and so far
from adding charm to the verse that they appear as obstacles. Ouch.
(04:51):
Bridges quotes Hopkins responding to challenges about his rhymes by
saying this some of my rhymes I regret, but they
are past changing. Grubs in amber. And there are only
a few of these. Others are unassailable. Some others again.
There are which Malignity may munch at, but the muses
will love. And there's a turn of phrase for you
(05:12):
Malignity may munch at, but the muses will love. He's
basically saying, okay, you don't like my rhymes, but hey,
the muses do. Hopkins is unrepentant. This is a poet
who knows what he's doing and who believes in what
he's doing, even in the face of nearly uniform criticism,
(05:36):
which is all well and good. But the question remains
for us what are we supposed to do with how
difficult these poems can seem? Well, as with any great
work of art, you got to give yourself time. It
takes time for the subtler beauty and wisdom in the
(05:59):
work to make an impression on us, or to even
register to us. I've heard it said that you need
to read any poem of Hopkins 12 times. When you
hear how he responded to his friend's criticism, you get
the sense that he didn't really want his poems to
be understood at one glance. He wanted to let the
(06:23):
poems linger inside people and release their beauty and their
meaning slowly over time. And that seems to be the
way it works. In the first few readings, you just
take in the words and enjoy the sound of them
and the way they roll against each other. Around the
(06:44):
sixth or seventh reading, you start to see the things
he's saying in his own weird way, and by the
10th or the 12th reading, it seems like the only
way it could have ever been said. Just like this.
Just these strange and beautiful words. Just this way and
no other. Let's get back to the poem. In Inversnaid
(07:14):
Hopkins pairs these wonderful and unexpected words together to set
the scene. The stream is a darksome burn. The rocks
down the hillside are the roll rock high road over
which the stream tumbles, frothing to foam. And there's a
sense in which this poem just needs a bit of
a glossary. The groins of the braes are the sides
(07:35):
of the hills. The fawn froth is the dear coloured foam.
Trapped in eddies in the running stream. And to be
dyed with dew is an old Scottish way of saying
sprinkled a heath pack is a clump of the heather
that blankets the Scottish Highlands, and the whole poem, and
many other of Hopkins's most beloved poems, simply celebrates the
(07:57):
goodness and beauty of the ordinary world. For Hopkins, God
is always in the details of the world that he's made.
The poem poses the question, what would the world be
without this stream, this stream and its everyday. Taken for granted. Beauty.
(08:22):
The thing about the stream beside the Inversnaid Hotel is
that it's not even big. It's small. This is not
Langston Hughes. Muddy Mississippi. And yet the poem asks us.
What would the world be without this wet and wildness
that Hopkins has dedicated 16 lines to? The details of
(08:43):
one stream, the color of it, the sound of it,
the vegetation above the stream, the way the foam spins
on the surface is his answer to the question. The
last lines of the poem are carved into the Canongate
Wall of the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh. It reads
(09:03):
let them be left. Oh, let them be left. Wildness
and wet. Long live the weeds and the wilderness. Yet.
And now, with all that in mind, here is Inversnaid
read by Heidi Johnston.
S2 (09:38):
This darksome burn horseback brown. His roll rock high road
roaring down in cup. And in comb the fleece of
his foam floats and low to the lake falls home.
A wind puffed bonnet of fawn froth turns and twiddles
over the broth of a pool. So pitch black fell, Fail. Frowning,
(09:58):
it rounds and rounds despair to drowning. Tagged with dew.
Dappled with dew. Or the groins of the braes that
the brook treads through. Wiry heath packs flitches of fern
and the bead bonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be? Once bereft of wet and
(10:21):
of wildness? Let them be left. Oh, let them be left.
Wildness and wet. Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
S3 (10:53):
I'll say it. The music from this episode was from if.
S4 (10:58):
I wait, my dear.
S5 (10:59):
Gravity a Soaring Swan sister by Aarti Sun.
S3 (11:04):
A Soaring Swan sister by O.d. Sun.
S5 (11:11):
Good, but without the sassy exasperation. Okay. Sunday afternoon by
I am daylight.
S4 (11:18):
By I am daylight.
S3 (11:20):
And pure land by evil. The sound design and editing
is by Nate Shepard. You can get more poetry from
the Rabbit Room.
S4 (11:27):
By subscribing to our newsletter.
S5 (11:31):
Subscribe link.
S3 (11:32):
By subscribing to our newsletter.
S5 (11:34):
Yeah. Good job. Good job.
S4 (11:37):
Did we just.
S3 (11:37):
Listen to the part where we laugh a lot?
S5 (11:40):
Please, let's try to get through the rest of the world.
S4 (11:43):
No, listen.
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