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Read more poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins: Gerard Manley Hopkins Poems at Poetry X.

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In Honour Of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Laybrother of the Society of Jesus


Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say;
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray. 

  Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.  

Added: 12 Aug 2002 | Last Read: 7 Jun 2025 4:41 PM | Viewed: 5224 times

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URL: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/6117/ | Viewed on 7 June 2025.
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