Windhover

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <p id="id00150" style="margin-top: 2em">_12 The Windhover:</p> <p id="id00151">To Christ our Lord_</p> <p id="id00152">I CAUGHT this morning morning's minion, king-<br/> dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Fal-<br/> con, in his riding<br/> Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and<br/> striding<br/> High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing<br/> In his ecstacy! then off, off forth on swing,<br/> As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend:<br/> the hurl and gliding<br/> Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding<br/> Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the<br/> thing!<br/></p> <p id="id00153">Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here<br/> Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a<br/> billion<br/> Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!<br/></p> <p id="id00154">     No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down<br/> sillion<br/> Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,<br/> Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />