Windhover and Reactions

I've never been much of a poetry buff and I certainly can't name to you all the rhythm schemes and when they were most popular with London's finest.  But when a poem moves me, that I can grasp and articulate with a bit more clarity.  And how can you not be moved by such a wonderful piece?

As my classmates have said before me, I too was caught in the majesty that is used to describe this powerful bird in flight.  But to me, that all seemed rather expected in the fact that he is describing a bird in flight.  I was knocked off my feet when Hopkins begins to move into the subject of the windhover  overpowering the wind.  Hopkins then begins to make his connection between the bird and himself.  He describes his "heart in hiding" and that's where I deviate in my interpretation of the poem.  It seems to me that Hopkins is aching for the same freedom and scope of capabilities the windhover has, "the mastery of the thing."  And when he comes to the pivotal moment of "buckle," I don't visualize a change in the bird but rather one in the man himself.  His walls that he has created around his heart to protect himself from the perceived threat of the outside world crumble.  Hence, the fire that breaks lose is that of his own passion.  And in some ways, I feel this lends more credibility to the final stanza.  Because now the field is not just freshly-turned cropland, it's the fertile space in his mind that he has opened up for use.  I know this might be reading too much into the poem but that's what felt right to me and occurred immediately during my first reading of the piece.

And in truth, I see in the selection of other poems by Hopkins a similar sense of search for release.  Whether that be from the mundane world such as in the "Sea and the Skylark."  The opening on this piece focuses on the natural cadence of his surroundings and their harmony with each other.  But in the third stanza, he criticizes either the actual clock tower or the human populations lifestyle by saying "how ring right out our sordid turbid time."  It's as if he views city life to be mechanical in it's progression of time instead of the natural flow found in the natural world.

In the vein of time in terms of the physical understanding (AKA- the hours and minutes we so arbitrarily rule our lives by) and that of a more openly interpreted time, I feel that The Annotated Alice fits in perfectly.  For the contrast that I see between the hustling, bustling inhabitants of the city and the more natural gait of country folk (I put myself in the latter, generally speaking) is displayed with Alice's curiosity towards the rabbit.  Alice is rather bored with her sister in the first chapter but is generally amused enough to not stress or worry about finding something to do.  The white rabbit, on the other hand, is a nervous flurry of action.  He is perennially caught in another sense of time and cannot slow down.  He seems to embody that which Hopkins wants to avoid- the more superficial style of life.  Instead, maybe we should model off of Alice.  But that sends me on a train of thought of maybe Alice serves as a better totem than the rabbit but that's discussion for another day...