I Remember a House

Here is an spellbinding poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I chose it for the theme of agapic love and hospitality. It is one I have known and loved for many years, and when I read it it helps me call to mind friends past and present who have shared their homes and their lives over the years.

There is one home in particular I think of, and its inhabitants will always be as a second family to me.

In the Valley of the Elwy

I remember a house where all were good
To me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
Comforting smell breathed at very entering,
Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.

That cordial air made those kind people a hood
All over, as a bevy of eggs the mothering wing
Will, or mild nights the new morsels of Spring:
Why, it seemed of course; seemed of right it should.

Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales,
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales;
Only the inmate does not correspond:

God, lover of souls, swaying considerate scales,
Complete thy creature dear O where it fails,
Being mighty a master, being a father and fond.