A poem which cannot be read or heard without being overpowered by its religious associations.
Compare “The Kestrels” by Sydney Keyes which accompanies it in the Faber Book of Modern Verse New Edition Enlarged –
“.. The small defiant kestrels – how they cut
The raincloud with sharp wings … “
From: Suzanne Edgar [
Sent: Sunday, 10 July 2011 11:44 PM
To: 'Canberra Birds'
Subject: [canberrabirds] Sat walk to Urambi Hill
Expertly run by Dan Mantle (for which much thanks). It included great sights of a Nankeen Kestrel hovering, provoking Dan’s apposite reference to Gerard Manley Hopkins’s `The Windhover’, the words of which we sought unavailingly…
`I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom 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 ...’
This was matched by another walker’s ref to `Pied Beauty’.
Sz
