Easter Vigil Poem

One benefit of this Holy Week Poetry project has been learning new poets. Here is one from Gerard Manley Hopkins - a poet recommended to me by my wife. I love his use of language and form - and I love poems that are one, well-knit, tight idea.

If you put Chrysostom's Easter Homily - which I use every year at the Vigil - in a moonshine still and boiled it down for two days, this is what comes out:

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Easter Communion

Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast:

God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips.

You striped in secret with breath-taking whips,

Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced

To crosses meant for Jesus; you whom the East

With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips

Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships,

You vigil-keepers with low flames decreased,

God shall o'er-brim the measures you have spent

With oil of gladness, for sackcloth and frieze

And the ever-fretting shirt of punishment

Give myrrhy-threaded golden folds of ease.

Your scarce-sheathed bones are weary of being bent:

Lo, God shall strengthen all the feeble knees.