LXXXV

Don September 29th, 2009

LXXXV Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.” 

            I spooked this guy on a walk one summer afternoon, and he ended up in New Oxford Review, Jan.-Feb., 1981, as a result.

 

 To a Quail:  Sonnet XXVIII 

Flash!  Flushed, it rushes and, flurrying, flies,

                                                No covey, but one lone quail, across the grass,

                                                While, fluttering likes its flight, the notes it cries

                                                Float flute-trilled thrills, through back the hushed air pass.

Oh fleet flinger of wing-beats into space,

                                                O sweet singer to carol the quickening dawn,

                                                One breathless, trembling moment saw you race

                                                The sun to the distant trees, and you were gone.

Hopkins held all Nature was news of God:

                                                Free windhover, caged lark, unleaving grove,

                                                Stippled trout, generations that trod and trod,

                                                And I’d thought, “What treasure if true, then, Nature’s trove!”

And standing there, startled and shaken by your shimmering flight,

                                                I knew beyond all doubt that he was right.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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