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Duns Scotus's Oxford

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Topics: classic

Towery city and branchy between towers;     Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmd, lark-charmd, rook- racked, river-rounded;     The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did     Once encounter in, here coped and poisd powers;     Thou hast a base and brickish skirt there, sours     That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded     Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded     Rural rural keeping - folk, flocks, and flowers.     Yet ah! this air I gather and I release     He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what     He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;     Of realty the rarest-veind unraveller; a not     Rivalled insight, be rival Italy or Greece;     Who fired France for Mary without spot.

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"Towery city and branchy between towers;..."

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Author:Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Towery city and branchy between towers;..." by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Gerard Manley Hopkins

About Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) was an English Jesuit poet who invented "sprung rhythm," a new metrical system. His poems—including "The Windhover," "Pied Beauty," and "God's Grandeur"—were published posthumously and are now celebrated for their ecstatic language and innovative prosody.

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