Mmmm…stillness…

I’m not sure when this poem started running around in my head, but given the week I’m having, the lure of stillness and silence feels very compelling…

It was written by the English poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who, in addition to being a Jesuit priest , (don’t let that put you off) wrote some of the most beautiful, exquisitely crafted poetry you will ever read.

Hopkins’ style was unique in that he used non-traditional rhythms, making his poetry fresh and sparkling. He often created words, as though the English language was not big enough to express what he saw and experienced.

The title of this poem “The Habit of Perfection” is a play on the double meaning of a “habit” as a  daily practice as well as the donning of the habit of religion.  I particularly love his description of the silence he has chosen, or “elected” beating “upon (his) whorled ear”, just one of the many acute observations of nature’s replications in the shell-like “whorls” in the human ear.

Having just spent some time in India, I was fascinated by the dozens of religious traditions there, and although the motifs and symbols in this poem come from the Christian tradition, the ideas of seclusion, silence, fasting and the inward journey are common to all traditions. I hope you enjoy it!

The Habit of Perfection

Elected Silence, sing to me

And beat upon my whorlèd ear,

Pipe me to pastures still and be

The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:

It is the shut, the curfew sent

From there where all surrenders come

Which only makes you eloquent.

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark

And find the uncreated light:

This ruck and reel which you remark

Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,

Desire not to be rinsed with wine:

The can must be so sweet, the crust

So fresh that come in fasts divine!

Nostrils, your careless breath that spend

Upon the stir and keep of pride,

What relish shall the censers send

Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet

That want the yield of plushy sward,

But you shall walk the golden street

And you unhouse and house the Lord.

And, Poverty, be thou the bride

And now the marriage feast begun,

And lily-coloured clothes provide

Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.