Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins · Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Lantern out of Doors

11 of 73 · 1 min of reading

SOMETIMES a lantern moves along the night,

That interests our eyes. And who goes there?

I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,

With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?

Men go by me whom either beauty bright

In mould or mind or what not else makes rare:

They rain against our much-thick and marsh air

Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.

Death or distance soon consumes them: wind

What most I may eye after, be in at the end

I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.

Christ minds: Christ's interest, what to avow or amend

There, éyes them, heart wánts, care haúnts, foot

fóllows kínd,

Their ránsom, théir rescue, ánd first, fást, last friénd.

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End of part 11 of 73

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