37. 'MARY MOTHER OF DIVINE GRACE COMPARED TO THE AIR WE BREATHE. Stonyhurst, May '83.' Autograph in A.—Text and title from later autograph in B. Taken by Dean Beeching into 'A Book of Christmas Verse' 1895 and thence, incorrectly, by Orby Shipley in 'Carmina Mariana'. Stated in a letter to R. W. D. June 25, '83, to have been written to 'hang up among the verse com- positions in the tongues. … I did a piece in the same metre as Blue in the mists all day.' Note Chaucer's account of the physical properties of the air, 'House of Fame', ii. 256, seq.

38. 'To WHAT SERVES MORTAL BEAUTY? (Common rhythm highly stressed: sonnet.) Aug. 23, '85.' Autograph in A.—Another autograph in B with a few variants from which A was chosen, the deletion of alternatives incom- plete. Thirdly a copy sent to R. W. D., apparently later than A, but with errors of copy. The text given is guided by this version in D, and needs in line 9 is substituted there for the once in A and B, probably because of once in line 6.—Original draft exists in H, on same page with 39 and 40. The following is his signature at this date:

Your affectionate friend
Gerard M. Hopkins S.J.
May 29 1885

Transcriber's note: This signature and date is displayed as a handwritten image in the original.

39. SOLDIER. 'Clongower, Aug. 1885.' Autograph in H, with a few corrections which I have taken for lines 6 and 7, of which the first draft runs:

It fancies; it deems; dears the artist after his art;
So feigns it finds as, &c.

The MS. marks the caesural place in ten of the lines in line 2, between Both and these. l 3, at the full stop. l. 6, fancies, feigns, deems, take three stresses. l. 11, after man. In line 7 I have added a comma at smart. In l. 10 I have substituted handle for reave of MS.: see note on reave, p. 101; and in l. 13, have hyphened God made flesh. No title in MS.

40. CARRION COMFORT. Autograph in H, in three versions. 1st, deleted draft. 2nd, a complete version, both on same page with 38 and 39. 3rd, with 41 on another sheet, final (?) revision carried only to end of 1. 12 (two detached lines on reverse). Text is this last with last two lines from the 2nd version. Date must be 1885, and this is probably the sonnet 'written in blood', of which he wrote in May of that year.—I have added the title and the hyphen in heaven-handling.

41. No worst. Autograph in H, on same page as third draft of 40. One undated draft with corrections embodied in the text here.—l. 5, at end are some marks which look like a hyphen and a comma: no title.

42. 'TOM'S GARLAND. Sonnet: common rhythm, but with hurried feet: two codas. Dromore, Sept. '87.' With full title, A.—Another autograph in B is identical. In line 9 there is a strong accent on I.—l. 10, the capital initial of country is doubtful.—Rhythmical marks omitted. The author's own explanation of this poem may be read in a letter written to me from 'Dublin, Feb. 10, '88: … I laughed outright and often, but very sardonically, to think you and the Canon could not construe my last son- net; that he had to write to you for a crib. It is plain I must go no further on this road: if you and he cannot understand me who will? Yet, declaimed, the strange constructions would be dramatic and effective. Must I interpret it? It means then that, as St. Paul and Plato and Hobbes and everybody says, the commonwealth or well-ordered human society is like one man; a body with many members and each its function; some higher, some lower, but all honourable, from the honour which belongs to the whole. The head is the sovereign, who has no superior but God and from heaven receives his or her authority: we must then imagine this head as bare (see St. Paul much on this) and covered, so to say, only with the sun and stars, of which the crown is a symbol, which is an ornament but not a covering; it has an enormous hat or skullcap, the vault of heaven. The foot is the day- labourer, and this is armed with hobnail boots, because it has to wear and be worn by the ground; which again is symbolical; for it is navvies or day-labourers who, on the great scale or in gangs and millions, mainly trench, tunnel, blast, and in other ways disfigure, "mammock" the earth and, on a small scale, singly, and superficially stamp it with their footprints. And the "garlands" of nails they wear are therefore the visible badge of the place they fill, the lowest in the commonwealth. But this place still shares the common honour, and if it wants one advantage, glory or public fame, makes up for it by another, ease of mind, absence of care; and these things are symbolised by the gold and the iron garlands. (O, once explained, how clear it all is!) Therefore the scene of the poem is laid at evening, when they are giving over work and one after another pile their picks, with which they earn their living, and swing off home, knocking sparks out of mother earth not now by labour and of choice but by the mere footing, being strong-shod and making no hardship of hard- ness, taking all easy. And so to supper and bed. Here comes a violent but effective hyperbaton or suspension, in which the action of the mind mimics that of the labourer— surveys his lot, low but free from care; then by a sudden strong act throws it over the shoulder or tosses it away as a light matter. The witnessing of which lightheartedness makes me indignant with the fools of Radical Levellers. But presently I remember that this is all very well for those who are in, however low in, the Commonwealth and share in any way the common weal; but that the curse of our times is that many do not share it, that they are out- casts from it and have neither security nor splendour; that they share care with the high and obscurity with the low, but wealth or comfort with neither. And this state of things, I say, is the origin of Loafers, Tramps, Corner- boys, Roughs, Socialists and other pests of society. And I think that it is a very pregnant sonnet, and in point of execution very highly wrought, too much so, I am afraid. … G.M.H.'