In the Valley of the Elwy

The Welsh River Elwy is a Tributary of the River Clwyd. Gerard Hopkins wrote this poem when he was at Saint Beuo’s Seminary in Wales. Hopkins is said to have been especially fond of the beautiful Elwy valley in the Snowdonia region of North Wales. His poem, In The Valley Of The Elwy is an almost ‘ode’ to this place, and the feelings he experienced when he spent time there of being at one with nature and the world.It is considered one of his most joyous poems. In a  letter to Robert Bridges he refered to his time in Wales as "my Welsh days, […] my salad days" (Letters to R. Bridges 163)

 

In the Valley of the Elwy

Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844–1889

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. T
hat 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, A
ll 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.

Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)