"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
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: shéer plód makes
plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash
gold-vermilion."
The Windhover (To
Christ Our Lord), Gerard Manley Hopkins
My kestrel.
I only ever see the one, though there must be at least a
pair nesting nearby – I once saw it repeatedly dive-bombing a couple of the
buzzards, which suggests the existence of a nest in the vicinity that it was
trying to protect. And succeeding, too, for the buzzards, much larger birds
though they are, eventually flew away. “Brute beauty and valour” indeed.
