Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Tuesday, October 22, 2024.

Today's poem is by Gerard Manley Hopkins, and it's called Heaven Haven.

I will read it twice with a few comments in between.

Here is Heaven Haven, with an epigraph or subtitle, A Nun Takes the Veil.

I have desired to go where springs not fail, to fields where flies no sharp and sighted hail,

and a few lilies blow, and I have asked to be where no storms come,

where the green swell is in the havens dumb

and out of the swing of the sea.

This is an early Hopkins poem.

He was born 1844,

and this poem dates to 1865 or 66, so sometime in his very early 20s.

And though his poetry was something that he kept largely to himself, Hopkins didn't publish his poetry during his lifetime and he shared it only among a small circle of friends.

He just was not known while living as a poet, again, except among a few circle of friends. He just was not known while living as a poet. I can't

except among a few select acquaintances. He cared a great deal about poetry and poetry was an

important part of his life, especially as a private devotional enterprise. And this is an

indication of just how early in that poetry writing life, which he maintained for himself, that his verse was devoted to, was concerned with serious and sacred things.

So this poem is devoted to or inspired by a nun taking the veil, taking her monastic vows, entering into monastic life.

And it's a very affectionate description of that life.

This is a haven that is akin to heaven itself.

Recently we had storms, a hurricane come through our state of Florida here,

and a friend from out of state was asking me if we were going to be okay, if we were particularly

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