The Open Shelf
As Kingfishers Catch Fire
Public domain — free to read, copy, and carry. Any translations, when they come, wait for a community reviewer.
Written in 1877; first published in Poems (1918). In the public domain. The accent marks are Hopkins’ own — they tell you where the voice should land. This one was built to be read aloud.
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.