"As Kingfishers Catch Fire" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Photo credit: 500px

                                                      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 What I do is me: for that I came.

                                                      I say more: the just man justices;
                                                                Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
                                                      Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
                                                                Christ. 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.

"As Kingfishers Catch Fire" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Public Domain.