sound and you can imagine the sound of the stream. Because ‘flutes’ is at the
beginning of the sentence it suggests the stream is echoing the sound of a waterfall.
Hopkins uses words like ‘wiry, flitches (ragged brown tufts)’ which help create a
sense of place because you can imagine the texture of the landscape. The
alliteration and repetition used in the line ‘degged with dew, dappled with dew’
emphasises the appearance of the landscape. The words degged and dappled also
describe the appearance of the land around the stream because they suggest the
idea that the landscape is heavy, shiny and speckled with dew.
Hopkins creates a sense of change by describing the stream’s movement
from its ‘roaring down’ to its smooth flowing. He uses words which the reader
immediately associates with movement. For example ‘roaring’, which is a word
normally associated with a lion, when combined with ‘rollrock highroad roaring
down’ provides the image of the stream rolling and rushing over rocks because
rollrock is an onomatopoeia- a word which mimics its sound. The rhythm
and alliteration in this line also contribute to imaging the stream’s movement. In the
second stanza, Hopkins has included words such as ‘turns, twindles and rounds and
rounds’. These clearly describe the stream’s movement and are all onomatopoeias
so the words sound like their action. The assonance and repetition of ‘rounds and
rounds’ enforce the idea that the stream is going round and round. Finally, the
second line of the third stanza ‘brook treads through’ shows the water’s smooth
movement.
Almost every two lines of Inversnaid ends in rhyme (froth, broth) and there
are usually four stresses per line:
This darksome burn, horseback brown
The pronounced rhyme scheme means you reach the climax in the final stanza of the
poem faster because it makes the words flow easily and quickly. The final stanza is
where Hopkins strongly conveys to the reader his strong beliefs about the
environment. ‘What would the world be, once bereft//Of wet and wilderness?’ is a
line where Hopkins challenges us which is the effect of the question. He is saying
that if the world was robbed of these things, it would be nothing. The repetition of ‘let
them be left’ emphasises the thought from Hopkins that the wilderness should be
conserved, especially with ‘O’ at the beginning of the repeated phrase. The last
sentence of the last stanza begins with ‘long live’ which shows Hopkins thinks the
environment is very important and that places like Inversnaid should be left as they
are forever. This opinion was reflected in a letter to his friend, Robert Bridges, where
he expressed his fears about ‘the decline of wild nature’. The alliteration of l’s and w’s
in this stanza adds to the rhythm and rapid delivery of it so that the last stanza is
more pronounced and in turn Hopkins’ views are more emphatic. The alliteration also
helps emphasise his views.
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
In the first half of this sentence the monosyllables used mean the point ‘long live the
weeds’ is succinct and so it is enforced.
Unlike Inversnaid, Felix Randall is a poem about a person and his
progression from a strong young man to a weak old man and finally death. We view
him through the eyes of a priest who has known and cared for him. Also unlike
Inversnaid, this poem contains many ideas about Hopkins’ Christian faith and God
and his duties as a priest, Hopkins creates a sense of person by opening the poem
with direct speech so it as if the priest is talking to someone and we are overhearing
their conversation, which then moves to a meditation and we see the priest reflecting
on Felix’s life. The poem also opens with a rhetorical question which emphasises the
point that it is as if we are overhearing a conversation. By telling the reader
Felix was a farrier, it immediately conjures up many images and shows that Felix was
part of a world of ‘craftsmanship and strength’, which is also shown by the use of
technical language belonging to this world (like forge). He describes Felix as a young
man as ‘big-boned and hardy-handsome’ and the alliteration of these phrases helps
to create strong images of a big, rugged and masculine man. Hopkins describes Felix
through his illness ‘impatient he cursed at first’, which helps the reader get an idea of
his character. He also calls him child which suggests vulnerability and that he is the
child of God. In the last stanza, Felix is described as ‘powerful amidst peers’ when he
was at his best which suggests he was a leader and popular at the work place.
Felix Randall is not just about the man in the title but also about the priest
who cared for him when he was sick. Hopkins creates a sense of person with the
priest by describing him at work and his duties as a priest like blessing the sick
‘anointed and all’ and providing holy communion ‘sweet reprieve and ransom’. We
also see more of the priest’s character when Hopkins conveys what the poet feels
about Felix and when he says ‘seeing the sick endears them to us’. This shows that
the priest feels compassion for the parishioners that he tends to and that being a
priest is more than just a job for him- which could reflect the feelings Hopkins felt for
his parishioners and what he feels about Felix. In the third stanza it says that the
priest has comforted Felix but he has also been touched by him ‘thy tears that
touched my heart.’
Hopkins creates a sense of change by describing Felix first as he was young
‘big-boned and hardy-handsome’ to ‘pining pining’. There is no punctuation between
handsome and pining, which is enjambment, and the effect of this enjambment is that
the words are emphasised and so the change from Felix being big-boned to him
pining is also emphasised. In the same stanza, Felix is describes as becoming senile
and loosing ability to reason, ‘ when reason rambled in it’. Hopkins describes the
change from Felix loosing his ability to reason to having a ‘heavenlier heart’ and so
he had more piece of mind after being blessed and receiving holy communion. It’s in
the last stanza that Hopkins conveys a real sense of change when he says
‘how from then forethought of, all they more boisterous //years’, suggesting what a
long way, and what a change it was from Felix being healthy, loud, young, energetic
to how he was before he died, ‘fatal four disorders’- his body giving up mentally and
physically.
The poem conveys strongly to the reader Hopkins’ strong beliefs about his duties as
a priest by having ‘duty’ in the first line of the poem and in the priest’s conversation
so it’s his natural thought and it shows that duty comes first. This is also emphasised
because there is a stress on the word duty. Hopkins feels his duties as a priest are to
bless the sick when they are dying so they feel more at ease about dying. By doing
this it makes him more worthy ‘us too it endears.’ He also feels his duties as a priest
are to offer spiritual comfort, help his parishioners to seek forgiveness from God and
to offer the promise of new life by giving them ‘sweet reprieve and ransom’.
Unlike Inversnaid, Felix Randall is a sonnet and has a sprung rhythm. This is
when the single stresses come one after the other with no unstressed syllables or a
single stress plus any amount of unstressed syllables. There are usually six stresses
to a line in this poem whilst Inversnaid has four.
Felix Randal, the farrier, O he is dead then? my duty all ended
Whereas in Inversnaid Hopkins uses compound words that he has made himself, like
twindles (turns and dwindles), he uses colloquial language-Lancashire dialect, ‘all
road ever he offended’, in Felix Randall, which gives a strong sense of spoken voice
and emphasises the point that it feels like we are overhearing a conversation
between the priest and someone else. It also makes the poem less stiff and more
emotive because it is someone’s thoughts and feelings spoken in their own dialect.
The use of colloquial language in this line is to convey a profound spiritual truth as it
is saying ‘may all his sins be forgiven’.
I prefer Felix Randall because I think Hopkins creates a much stronger sense
of person than place and it’s much more interesting. I think the structure of the poem
is better because it is more effective in conveying Hopkins’ ideas. By starting with
Felix suffering from a serious illness, and then describing how the priest was able to
help him and the benefits the priest gained from that and finally to comparing Felix
Randall at his prime to how he was at the end of his life makes it a more emotional
poem than Inversnaid. The fact that the poem contains ideas of a person’s suffering
means that a lot more people can relate to it, than to a poem about a Scottish
landscape, because everyone has suffered or seen someone else suffer the effects
of old age. The use of colloquial language also makes the poem more accessible.
‘Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!’
