what is the wingspan of this bird?Not sure if that one came before or after this, but I know Hopkins admired Whitman, so maybe there's some connection?
The Windhover
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
Good question, Jeremy.what is the wingspan of this bird?
Where do you start with Baudelaire, for someone with extremely basic French?
Part of me wants to get into the French stuff, but I've tried with Rimbaud and while I really like some of it it's never fully connected - maybe it's just the translations I've got that aren't that good, I dunno, or maybe it's something else that puts me off, something prejudiced maybe.
Gonna come out and say it - Spanish avant garde/modernist poetry (Lorca, Neruda, to a lesser extent Cernuda & Alberti) shits all over the French gear imo.
Willing to change my mind though if someone can recommend a good edition of something.