There is an invariable quickness and reality in his work—although at moments it may also be a bit fantastic—at the very point where the tendency of so many others is to become a little cold or a little sweet. One may search for many a long day among the treasures of English verse before one shall find such a powerful and poetic meditation upon the Holy Eucharist as he has left us. We quote but two stanzas of "Barnfloor and Winepress," although the entire poem ought to have the recognition due to a devotional classic:
Thou who on Sin's wages starvest,
Behold, we have the Joy of Harvest;
For us was gathered the First-fruits,
For us was lifted from the roots,
Sheaved in cruel bands, bruised sore,
Scourged upon the threshing-floor;
Where the upper millstone roofed His Head,
At morn we found the Heavenly Bread;
And on a thousand altars laid,
Christ our Sacrifice is made.
Thou, whose dry plot for moisture gapes,
We shout with them that tread the grapes;
For us the Vine was fenced with thorn,
Five ways the precious branches torn.
Terrible fruit was on the tree
In the acre of Gethsemane:
For us by Calvary's distress
The wine was racked from the press;
Now, in our altar-vessels stored,
Lo, the sweet vintage of the Lord!
In quite other vein, and of real lyric charm, is Rosa Mystica. Father Hopkins has contrived to throw a glamour of simplicity and ingenuousness over thoughts by no means simple; while the use of assonance and alliteration (frequent and nearly always felicitous throughout his work) and of the
