Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Handsome Heart

怀抱花朵的孩子

The Handsome Heart
  
  
at a Gracious Answer
  
  
‘BUT tell me, child, your choice; what shall I buy  
You?’—‘Father, what you buy me I like best.’  
With the sweetest air that said, still plied and pressed,  
He swung to his first poised purport of reply.  
  
What the heart is! which, like carriers let fly—         5
Doff darkness, homing nature knows the rest—  
To its own fine function, wild and self-instressed,  
Falls light as ten years long taught how to and why.  
  
Mannerly-hearted! more than handsome face—  
Beauty’s bearing or muse of mounting vein,         10
All, in this case, bathed in high hallowing grace…  
  
Of heaven what boon to buy you, boy, or gain  
Not granted?—Only … O on that path you pace  
Run all your race, O brace sterner that strain!


Notes:
‘The Handsome Heart. (Common rhythm counterpointed.) Oxford, ’79.’ A1.—In Aug. of the same year he wrote that he was surprised at my liking it, and in deference to my criticism sent a revise, A2.—Subsequently he recast the sonnet mostly in the longer 6-stress lines, and wrote that into B.—In that final version the charm and freshness have disappeared: and his emendation in evading the clash of ply and reply is awkward; also the fourteen lines now contain seven whats. I have therefore taken A1 for the text, and have ventured, in line 8, to restore how to, in the place of what, from the original version which exists in H. In ‘The Spirit of Man’ I gave a mixture of A1 and A2. In line 5 the word soul is in H and A1: but A2 and B have heart. Father in second line was the Rev. Father Gerard himself. He tells the whole story in a letter to me.

From: http://www.bartleby.com/122/27.html

怀抱花朵的孩子

This poem is very difficult for me to understand, but what interests me is the word "self-instressed". We know that the "instress" is a very important concept in Hopkins' literature theory as well as "Inscape".
I just know Hopkins used these two terms in his journals. But I didn't know I can find this word in his sonnet. I think this poem is very very important for our studying in Hopkins.