The Windhover To Christ our Lord I caught this morning morning’s minion king- dom 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 In his ecstasy!  then off, off forth on swing, As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding   Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing! Brute beauty and valour and act; oh air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion. Notes on the Windhover (mostly from Gardener & McKenzie)

1.        General.Notes

The meaning of the sonnet is broadly this . Hopkins  sees the windhover  as the symbol or analogue of Christ the
Son of God, the supreme Chevalier.  The poem is a prayer that the human equivalents of this bird’s heroic
graces and perfectly disciplined physical activity may be combined and brought to a much higher spiritual  
activity in his own being, just as these attributes were once and for all so transmuted in Christ.. Characteristic
natural action or “selving” , however humble it may be, frequently gives off flashes of heart-stirring beauty; how
much more then should characteristically Christ like action (including conscientious toil and willing self sacrifice)
give glory and be pleasing to Christ , Our Lord.

In a letter to Bridges in 1879 making a minor correction to the text  Hopkins referred to the Windhover as “the
best thing he ever wrote”. To my knowledge, nobody has quarrelled with this judgment.



2.        The Text .
L1. The dramatic change of metaphor form “minion” to “dauphin” might be suggestive of the bird’s  ability to
execute dramatic changes of direction in flight
L2. “dappled” - Hopkins liked dappled things and wrote a whole sonnet in their praise
L3 “rolling level underneath him” is an adjectival phrase qualifying “air”
L4. “rung upon the rein”  is an equestrian phrase. Part of the process of training horses is  to get them to circle
at the end of a rein held by their trainer.. This image of a disciplined, tightly  controlled  motion  is in contrast to
the sense of the bird’s graceful freedom  evoked by the  words riding, striding, and gliding.  

L4 “wimpling” – this means beautifully pleated, curved and rippling,  I think it  refers to the tiny but visible  
ripples of muscular activity needed to maintain a bird in a state of hovering  or  in the execution of a disciplined
manoeuvre like circling.

L7. “my heart in hiding”.  This is a much-discussed phrase.  The plain meaning is that the phrase refers to the
sense of being abashed and humbled that should overtake any one fortunate enough to observe a display of  
such heart-stirring virtuosity. Overtone meanings are that the phrase alludes to a “hide” – a tent like structure
used by birdwatchers or that it is an echo of  St.Paul – “ Set your affections  ….not on things on the earth . For
you are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God”.  Hopkins himself wrote “Erat subditis illis : the hidden
life at Nazareth is a great help to faith for us who must live more or less an obscure, constrained and
unsuccessful life”. The rhyme of “hiding” with riding etc. underscores the contrast in predicament between the
bird and the observing poet.  

L9. “buckle”.  The meaning of this word in this context has been argued about. The natural reading is that
“buckle” is used as in “buckle a shoe”  or “buckle a belt” giving the meaning that when the qualities of natural
grace and panache are buckled to  the Christian they are transmuted into the many times more impressive  and
more beautiful Christ-like virtues..

L10.  “thee”  Hopkins added the explicit dedication  “To Christ Our Lord”  only at the final revision. This may
have been to clarify that “thee”, “my chevalier” and “ah, my dear”  refer to Christ, Our Lord..

L9-10. These two lines go to the heart of the Christian outlook on the world, The Christian  does not disparage
or fail to appreciate the natural world, However  the cultivation  of the  hidden virtues of  mind and heart  is a
higher and more urgent calling,  and giving every bit as much scope for  “valour and act, air , pride  and plume”
as the external world  of nature.  This is the sense in which we should understand Our Lord’s wish for us to
“have life and to have it more abundantly” and Tertullian’s aphorism “The glory of God is man fully alive”.

L11. “sillion”   means a strip of arable land.

L12-14

The final tercet contains two stunningly original and exact metaphors of deep comfort to all those of us who have
a sense that, for the most part, they lead their lives  harnessed to a wagon piled high with routine obligations..

The first metaphor is of a shire horse steadily and unspectacularly pulling a plough. On the surface it is a scene
of plodding fulfilment of humdrum duty;  however, beneath the ground and hidden from view the ploughshare is
being burnished to a bright silver.

The second metaphor is that of a fire which, at first glance, has gone out so that embers seem “blue bleak”.
Then an ember suddenly shears or tumbles from the fire  and one sees the bright glow and realises that behind
the dull exterior  a quiet, but intense burning has been, all the while, taking place.

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