The second of Penguin's Little Black Classics shows a collection of poems of Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Unfortunately, they were not my taste and failed for the most part to hold my attention.

One nice little detail I wanted to point out though. I'm sure it has happened to a lot of us for whom English is not the mother tongue. Sometimes when a word also exist in your own language (but with a different meaning) you'll be unable to see it properly in English. One of Hopkins' poems provided one of these cases. It is in fact 'no worst, there is none'. Which at first seems a normal sentence, but I believe I also pointed it out in a review of a book with the same name, 'worst' is the Dutch word for sausage, which led to some confusion on my side. The author, however, is not the least to be blamed for this in any case, but still I don't think I will purchase a larger collection of his poems.

The thing about Hopkins is that you need to read him outloud. His poetry truly works when you are listening to the word play and sound.

This edition also includes part of his journal. That part is okay. He really loves nature.

"Graceful growth of Etzkoltzias or however those unhappy flowers are spelt."

19th Century poetry and journal entries from Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Victorian priest with the most beautiful grasp on language I have ever encountered. The poetry should be read aloud as it is delivered quickly, with onomatopoeia and alliteration giving it an almost ethereal quality. God features heavily, but above all else Hopkins' devotation to nature shines through.

The journal entries are poetry in prose form, feeling surrounded with exactly what Hopkins is seeing through his words alone. His sheer delight in nature and his dismay at its destruction is both breathtakingly beautiful and heart-numbingly saddening.

"April 8. The ash tree growing in the corner of the garden was felled. It was lopped first: I heard the sound and looking out and seeing it maimed there came at that moment a great pang and I wished to die and not to see the inscapes of the world destroyed any more"

The Windhover - Gerard Manley Hopkins Nation's Favourite Poems: features in a 1996 nationwide poll compilation.From wiki - It was written on May 30, 1877, but not published until 1918, when it was included as part of the collection Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins dedicated the poem "to Christ our Lord"."Windhover" is another name for the Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus). The name refers to the bird's ability to hover in midair while hunting prey. In the poem, the narrator admires the bird as it hovers in the air, suggesting that it controls the wind as a man may control a horse. The bird then suddenly swoops downwards and "[rebuffs] the big wind". The bird can be viewed as a metaphor for Christ or of divine epiphany.Hopkins called "The Windhover" "the best thing [he] ever wrote". It commonly appears in anthologies and has lent itself to many interpretations.