As Kingfishers Catch Fire…(Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places)

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim and roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad it’s name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying what I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his,
To the Father through the feature of men’s faces.

Poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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