As Kingfishers Catch Fire
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
 
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
 
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
 

This sonnet is quintessential Hopkins: full of close observation of the natural world and rich theological insight, all expressed in Hopkins’ dense and unmistakable style.

In the first four lines of the poem, Hopkins links together a sequence of images. “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.” Of course, neither kingfishers nor dragonflies are on fire! But through the language, we see the flash of a kingfisher’s bright plumage, and the dazzling trail of a dragonfly as it darts over the surface of water. Notice how Hopkins doesn’t just juxtapose, but joins the images: As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame. And these images share the same sentence with something utterly different – “as tumbled over rims in roundy wells / Stones ring” – the sound of a stone dropped in a well, which in turn is linked with two musical references: the “tucked string” of a stringed instrument, “the hung bell’s bow swung.”

These disparate images seem to have nothing in common, but Hopkins connects them, and, indeed, everything: “Each mortal thing does one thing and the same.” What could that possibly be?  Each thing, animate or inanimate, stone, string, bell, insect, bird – “deals out that being indoors each one dwells.” Each thing reveals its nature in what it does. Not only that, it reveals its deepest purpose. “What I do is me: for that I came.”
 
In the sestet, the last six lines of the sonnet, Hopkins moves from animals and things to human beings. We are part of the same world, and like all created things, we live what is within us, revealing our inner nature by what we do. “The just man justices; / Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces.” The one who “keeps grace” is gracious not just in particular moments, but in “all his goings.”
 
But it is not just ourselves that we reveal: “The just man… Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —Chríst.” We have come a long way from kingfishers and dragonflies! Hopkins says that the just person, in God’s eyes, reveals Christ because he is Christ. God’s vision recognizes the beauty of Christ everywhere: “lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father through the features of men’s faces.” This is not merely a matter of resemblance, but the presence of Christ, who “plays in ten thousand places.”

“Each mortal thing does one thing and the same; / Deals out that being indoors each one dwells.” And for the Christian, that is not just ourselves – it is Christ. As St. Paul says, “I live; no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” We are most truly ourselves when we are most closely conformed to Christ.

Pope Francis recently wrote: “the full extent of our formation is our conformation to Christ…. It does not have to do with an abstract mental process, but with becoming Him.” Just as the Holy Spirit comes down on the bread and wine to make them the Body and Blood of Christ, so too does the Holy Spirit come upon us, to make us the Body of Christ. The life of faith is about “becoming him”—in Christ, we find our deepest identity, our deepest purpose. The life of Jesus reveals that perfect unity of identity and vocation which Hopkins expresses so powerfully in this poem: “what I do is me: for that I came.”