The Windhover
A kestrel caught in the morning air rides the rolling level underneath him steady, then rebuffs the big wind on a swing as smooth as a skate's heel sweeping round a bend, and the watcher's heart stirs in hiding for a bird. Dedicated to Christ our Lord, the octave keeps to falconry — minion, dauphin, chevalier — and holds the mastery of the thing in plain sight before the sestet asks what it is a figure of. Hopkins thought it the best thing he ever wrote, and it survives only because he had posted copies to Robert Bridges.
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Attributes
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Plot structure
Symbol / motif
Conflict
Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 61% · 11 shared
- 57% · 10 shared
- 56% · 10 shared
- 56% · 10 shared
- 56% · 10 shared
- 54% · 10 shared