All the air things wear

Here's some more Hopkins, one I found by accident looking for something else. It's called “In the Valley of the Elwy.” The “comforting smell...fetched fresh...off some sweet wood” is redolent to me of childhood winters, our own valley filled with fragrant woodsmoke. It also reminds me of Herbert: “Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back...”; and of Heber: “every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.” I like the congruence of household imagery with nature and with supernature. The first two lines of the second stanza are as good as anything else Hopkins wrote.

I remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of Spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.