April 2, 2025 • 29 mins
When Gerard Manley Hopkins became a Jesuit in 1868, he burned his poetry and swore off making any more. Then followed nearly a decade of poetic silence, in which he wrote little to no poetry. That is, until a ship called the Deutschland ran aground off the coast of England. Hopkins was so affected by the tragedy, especially the death of five Franciscan nuns, that a poem came pouring out of him in 35 eight-line stanzas.
"The Wreck of the Deutschland" is written in two parts. The first part is autobiographical, and the second part focuses on the action and aftermath of the wreck itself. Though almost roundly rejected by everyone who read it during Hopkins life, "The Wreck of the Deutschland" makes innovative use of the English language the likes of which has rarely been seen since, let alone in 1875.
Music from this episode was from EVOE, Julian Cassia, Brianna Tam, Sid Acharya, Aija Alsina, idokay, and Enzo Bellomo.
Sound design and editing is by Nate Sheppard. For more poetry from the Rabbit Room, subscribe to our newsletter at Rabbitroompoetry.substack.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:01):
I'm Andy Patton and this is Rhyme and Reason from
the Rabbit Room. Each season we look at the life
and work of one poet, starting with Gerard Manley Hopkins.
(00:27):
When Hopkins became a Jesuit in 1868, he burned his
poetry and swore off making any more. Then followed nearly
a decade of poetic silence in which he wrote little
to no poetry. That is, until a ship called the
Deutschland ran aground off the coast of England. Hopkins later
(00:55):
tells the story in a letter. This is what he wrote.
What I had written I burnt before I became a
Jesuit and resolved to write no more. As not belonging
to my profession. So for seven years I wrote nothing.
But when, in the winter of 75, the Deutschland was
wrecked in the mouth of the Thames, and the five
Franciscan nuns, exiles from Germany by the folk laws aboard
(01:18):
her were drowned. I was affected by the account, and
happening to say so to my rector. He said that
he wished someone would write a poem on the subject.
On this I set to work. The poem that came
(01:42):
pouring out of him was made of 35 eight line stanzas,
and it was charged with such an innovative use of
the English language, the likes of which has rarely been
seen since, let alone in 1875. Paul Mariani, a poet
and one of Hopkins's biographers, asked of the wreck of
(02:03):
the Deutschland where did this tapped energy come from? How
long had it lain dormant, waiting for this moment to
be released like a spring shower after a long winter?
And Mariani then calls it an inexorable grace, the sudden,
unexplained hundred fold resurrection of his precious, long silenced poetic gift. Now,
(02:27):
before we hear the poem, I want to mention a
few things about its structure. It has 35 eight line stanzas,
so it's a long poem, almost 300 lines in total.
It's written in two parts. Both parts reference the wreck,
but the first part is more autobiographical, also taking up
(02:48):
the theme of Hopkins's own conversion and spiritual experience, while
the second part focuses on the action and the aftermath
of the wreck itself. Margaret Ellsberg writes that this dual
structure mirrors, quote, Hopkins sense of his own internal catastrophe.
So he writes himself into the poem and takes head
(03:11):
on not only the event of the shipwreck, but also
his own sometimes turbulent, sometimes ecstatic experience of God as well.
I'm going to read you some lines that illustrate what
I mean. In the first part, you'll get autobiographical lines
like these. I did say yes. Oh, at lightning and
lashed rod. Thou heardest me truer than tongue. Confess thy terror. Oh, Christ, oh, God.
(03:38):
And you'll also get lines like these. Beyond saying sweet past,
telling of tongue, thou art lightning and love. I found
it a winter and warm father. And fondler of heart
thou hast wrung. So he's talking about God and he's
(04:02):
talking about himself, his own conversion and his own wrestling
storm wracked spirituality. He's speaking in first person. He's talking
about his confession of faith as though he were lashed
by lightning. He calls God Father, but also calls him terror.
He calls him lightning and love. He says God is
(04:24):
a fondler of heart, but the heart God holds is
also a heart. He is wrung. And the second section
of the poem focuses on the wreck itself, and you
get lines that are almost poetic narrative like these. On Saturday,
sailed from Bremen, American outward bound takes settler and seamen
tell men with the women 200 souls in the round. Oh, father,
(04:48):
not under thy feathers. Nor ever as guessing. The goal
was a shoal of a fourth. The doom to be drowned.
The plot of the poem, as it were, is, as
the title indicates, the wreck of the Deutschland itself, and
it's a scene of unfolding chaos. Bodies are swinging from
(05:12):
ropes being dashed against the waves. The passengers have taken
to the rigging because braving the icy wind and rain
means being safe from the raging sea. Hopkins describes the
cutting cold as wiry and white, fiery. People are calling
out to God throughout the night as others are swept
out to sea, pulled down into the quote, widow making
(05:36):
unchildish unfathomable deeps. If the plot of the poem is
the wreck, the meanings of the poem go far beyond
the stage action of the shipwreck. Hopkins fits a lot in.
He fits the cruelty of nature and the mystery of
(05:56):
that cruelty overseen by a good, wise and loving God.
He fits the terror of conversion. And yet and yet
the desire to belong wholly and only to one's maker,
and the slow, perilous thrum of God's hammer and anvil
work in our hearts. The poem displays the rich beauty
(06:19):
of God's creation, even in dire straits, even in the
face of death. For all its beauty, the wreck, like
so much of Hopkin's poetry during his life, was roundly
(06:40):
rejected by almost everyone who read it. It was passed
over for publication. One of his friends said, I wish
those nuns had just stayed at home, which was really
a clever and cutting way to say I do not
care for this poem. Robert Bridges, one of Hopkins closest friends,
said that he would not read it again for any money.
(07:01):
Hopkins responded to bridges in a letter saying, if it
is obscure, do not bother yourself with the meaning, but
pay attention to the best and most intelligible stanzas. If
you had done this, you would have liked it better
and sent me more serviceable criticism. But now your criticism
is of no use being only protest, and you can
almost hear him pleading for a more compassionate reading. And
(07:25):
he adds to bridges quote, I do not write for
the public. You are my public and I hope to
convert you. Now, presumably Hopkins poetry did eventually convert his friend,
because after Hopkins death, bridges would be his most hearty champion,
(07:47):
using his influence as poet laureate of England to get
his friends poetry, including the wreck of the Deutschland, immortalized
in print for all generations. Now I'm going to read
this long poem, and my advice to you would be
to take Hopkins advice to his friend. Let the sound
(08:08):
of it roll over you, if it makes sense. Great.
If it doesn't. Don't worry about it. You're just beginning
to step into a relationship with this poem. There's no
rush and there's no pressure. Like every great relationship, there
is time for a deep knowing over a long, long acquaintance.
(08:32):
So if this is your first time hearing the wreck
of the Deutschland, just experience it. Just listen. Don't try
to connect all the dots. Don't try to come to
the end of it saying, aha, I know what it
all means. Because you won't. You won't get even much
of it. Just begin the relationship. Chip. And now, with
(08:58):
all of that in mind, here is the wreck of
the Deutschland. To the happy memory of five Franciscan nuns.
Exiles by the folklores drowned between midnight and morning of
December 7th, 1875. Now mastering me. God, giver of breath
(09:27):
and bread. World. Strand. Sway of the sea. Lord of
Living and dead. Thou hast bound bones and veins in me.
Fastened me flesh. And after it almost unmade. What with
dread thy doing. And dost thou touch me afresh over
(09:48):
again I feel thy finger and find thee. I did
say yes. Oh! At lightning and lashed rod, thou hadst
me truer than tongue. Confess thy terror. Oh, Christ, oh, God,
thou knowest the walls alter. And hour and night. The
swoon of a heart. That the sweep and the hurl
(10:10):
of thee. Trod hard down with horror of height and
the midriff a strain with leaning of laced with fire
of stress. The frown of his face before me. The
hurdle of hell behind. Where? Where was. Where was a place?
I whirled out wings that spell. And fled with a
(10:33):
fling of the heart. To the heart of the host.
My heart. But you were dove winged. I can tell
carrier witted I am bold to boast. To flash from
the flame to the flame. Then Tower. From the grace
to the grace. I am soft sift in an hourglass
(10:55):
at the wall. Fast but mined with emotion. Adrift. And
it crowds and it combs to the fall. I steady
as a water in a well. To a poise, to
a pain. But roped with always all the way down
from the tall fells or flanks of the vole. A
(11:17):
vein of the gospel proffer a pressure, a principle, Christ's gift.
I kiss my hand to the stars lovely asunder. Starlight
wafting him out of it. And glow. Glory and thunder.
Kiss my hand to the dappled with damson west. Since
(11:39):
though he is under the world's splendor and wonder. His
mystery must be in stressed, stressed. For I greet him
the days I meet him and bless when I understand
not out of his bliss springs the stress felt, nor
first from heaven. And few know this swings the stroke
(12:01):
dealt stroke and distress that stars and storms deliver. That
guilt is hushed by. Hearts are flushed by and melt.
But it rides time like riding a river. And here
the faithful waver. The faithless fable and miss. It dates
from day of his going in Galilee. Warm laid grave
(12:25):
of a womb life gray manger, maidens knee, the dense
and driven passion and frightful sweat. Thence the discharge of
it there its swelling to be though felt before, though
in high flood. Yet what none would have known of it,
only the heart being hard at bay, only the heart
(12:47):
being hard at bay is out with it. Oh, we
lash with the best or worst words last. How a
lush kept plush capped slow will mouth to flesh burst
gush flush the man the being with its sour or
sweet brim in a flash full hither than last or
(13:09):
first to hero of Calvary. Christ's feet never ask if
meaning it, wanting it warned of it. Men go be
adored among men. God three numbered form. Ring thy rebel.
Dogged in den man's malice with wrecking and storm. Beyond
(13:32):
saying sweet past. Telling of tongue. Thou art lightning and
love I found it a winter and warm father. And
fondler of heart. Thou hast run. Hast thy dark descending
and most merciful, then. With anvil ding. And with fire
(13:53):
in him forged thy will. Or rather, rather than stealing
as spring through him, melt him, but master him still,
whether at once as once at a crash Paul, or
as Austin, a lingering out sweet skill. Make mercy in
all of us, out of us all mastery. But be adored,
(14:16):
be adored. King. Some find me a sword, some the
flange and the rail. Flame fang or flood goes death
on drum and storms bugle his fame. But we dream
(14:37):
we are rooted in earth. Dust. Flesh falls within sight
of us. We though our flower the same way with
the meadow. Forget that there must. The sour scythe cringe.
And the blir Cher. Come on Saturday. Sailed from Bremen.
American outward bound. Take settler and seaman. Till men with
(15:01):
the women. 200 souls in the round. Oh, father, not
under thy feathers. Nor ever as guessing the goal was.
A show of a fourth. The doom to be drowned.
Yet did the dark side of the bay. Of thy
blessing not vault them the million of rounds of thy mercy.
(15:23):
Not even them in. Into the snows she sweeps, hurling
the haven behind the Deutschland on Sunday. And so. The
sky keeps for the infinite air is unkind. And the
sea flint flake. Black backed in the regular blow, sitting
(15:46):
east northeast in the cursed quarter. The wind, wiry and white,
fiery and the whirlwind swivel. Its snow spins to the widow,
making Unchildish unfaltering deeps. She drove in the dark to leeward.
She struck not a reef or a rock, but the
(16:07):
combs of a smother of sand. Night drew her dead
to the Kentish knock. And she beat the bank down
with her bows and the ride of her keel. The
breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock and canvas
and compass. The whirl and the wheel idle forever to
waft her or wind with her. These she endured. Hope
(16:34):
had grown grey hairs. Hope had morning on. Drenched with tears.
Carved with cares. Hope was 12 hours gone and frightful
and nightfall folded. Rueful a day nor rescue. Only rocket
and light ship shone. And lives at last were washing
(16:55):
away to. The shrouds they took, they shook in the
hurling and horrible airs. One stirred from the rigging to.
Save the wild womankind below. With a rope's end. Round
the man handy and brave. He was pitched to his
death at a blow. For all his dread. Not breast
(17:17):
and braids of thew. They could tell him for hours
dandled the to and fro through the cobbled foam fleece.
What could he do with the burl of the fountain
of air Buck and the flood of the wave? They
(17:38):
fought with God's cold. And they could not and fell
to the deck, crushed them or water and drown them,
or rolled with the sea. Romp over the wreck. Night
roared with the heartbreak. Hearing a heartbroke rabble. The woman's wailing.
The crying of child without check. Till a lioness arose.
(18:00):
Breasting the babble a prophetess towered in the tumult, a
virginal tongue told. Are touched in your bower of bone.
Are you turned for an exquisite smart. Have you make
words break from me here all alone? Do you mother
(18:20):
of being in me heart, O unteachable after evil but
uttering truth, why tears? Is it tears such a melting,
a madrigal start never eldering revel in river of youth.
What can it be? This glee. The good you have
there of your own. Sister. A sister calling a master.
(18:46):
Her master and mine. And the inboard seas run. Swirling
and hauling the rash. Smart slobbering brine blinds her. But she.
That weather sees one thing. One has one Fechner. She
rears herself to the divine ears. And the call of
(19:06):
the tall. None to the men in the tops. And
the tackle. Rowed over the storms, brawling. She was first
of a five and came of a coifed sisterhood. O
Deutschland double a desperate name o worldwide of its good.
(19:29):
But Gertrude, Lily and Luther are two of a town.
Christ's Lily and beast of the waste wood. From life's
dawn it is drawn down. Abel is Cain's brother. And breasts.
They have sucked the same loathe for love. Men new
in them, banned by the land of their birth. Rhine
(19:50):
refused them. Thames would ruin them. Surf snow, river and earth. Gnashed.
But thou art above. Thou Orion of light. Thy enchanting
Poising palms were weighing the worth. Thou martyr, master, in
thy sight. Storm flakes were scroll leaved flowers. Lily showers. Sweet.
(20:15):
Heaven was a strew in them. Five. The finding and
sake and cipher of suffering. Christ, Mark. The mark is
of man's make and the word of its sacrifice. But
he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken
(20:36):
before time taken. Dearest, prized and prized stigma signal. Cinquefoil
token for lettering of the Lamb's fleece. Rudying of the
Rose flake. Joy. Fall to thee, Father Francis. Drawn to
the life that died. With the gnarls of the nails.
(20:58):
In the niche of the lance. His love scape. Crucified.
On the seal of his seraph. Arrival. And these thy
daughters and five lived and leaved. Favour and pride are sisterly.
Sealed in wild waters. To bathe in his fall. Gold
mercies to breathe in his all fire glances. Away in
(21:26):
the lovable west. On a pastoral forehead of Wales. I
was under a roof. Here I was at rest. And
they the prey of the gales. She to the black
about air to the breaker. The thickly falling flakes to
the throng that catches and quails was calling. Oh, Christ, Christ,
come quickly. The cross to her. She calls Christ to
(21:50):
her Christians her wild worst. Best. The majesty. What did
she mean? Breathe. Arch and original breath. Is it love
in her of the being as her lover had been? Breathe.
Body of lovely death. They were else minded. Then altogether
(22:10):
the men woke thee with a. We are perishing in
the weather of Nazareth. Or is it that she cried
for a crown? Then the keener to come at the
comfort for feeling the combating keen for how to the
hearts cheering the down dogged ground hugged gray hovers off
(22:33):
the j blue heavens appearing Earring of pied and peeled.
May blue beating and hoary glow height or night still
higher with belled fire and the moth soft Milky Way. What,
by your measure, is the heaven of desire. The treasure
(22:56):
never eyesight got, nor was ever guessed. What for the hearing? No,
but it was not these the jading and the jar
of the cart times tasking. It is father's that asking
for ease of the sodden with its sorrowing heart, not
danger electrical horror. Then further it finds the appealing of
(23:20):
the passion is tenderer in prayer apart other I gather
in measure her minds burden in winds burly and beat
of the in dragon it sees. But how shall I
make my room there? Reach me a fancy. Come faster
(23:41):
strike you the sight of it. Look at it loom
there thing that she there. Then the master ipse the
only one Christ king had. He was to cure the
extremity where he had cast her. Do deal Lord it
with living and dead. Let him ride her pride in
his triumph. Dispatch, and have done with his doom. There
(24:06):
are there was a heart, right? There was a single
eye read the unshakable shock night. And knew the who
and the why wording it how. But by him that
present and past heaven and earth are word of worded
by the Simon Peter of a soul to the blast
tarpeian fast, but a blown beacon of light. Jesu. heart's light.
(24:35):
Jesu made sun. What was the feast followed the night.
Thou hadst glory of this none. Feast of the one
woman without stain. For so conceived. So to conceive thee
is done. But here was heart. Thro birth of a brain.
Word that heard and kept thee. And uttered thee outright. Well,
(25:04):
she has thee for the pain, for the patience but
pity of the rest of them. Heart go and bleed
at a bitterer vein. For the comfortless unconfessed of them
know not uncomforted lovely felicitous providence. Finger of a tender
of oh of a feathery delicacy. The breast of the
(25:26):
maiden could obey. So be a bell to ring of it.
And startle the poor sheep back. Is this shipwreck, then
of harvest? Does Tempest carry the grain for thee? I
admire the master of the tides of the. Your flood
(25:47):
of the years. Fall the recurve and the recovery of
the gulfs sides, the girth of it and the wharf
of it. And the wall. Staunching quenching ocean of emotional mind.
Ground of being. And the granite of it past all grasp.
God throned behind death with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes,
(26:11):
but abides. With a mercy that outrides the all of water.
An ark for the listener, for the Lingerer with a
love glides lower than death and the dark a vein
(26:34):
for the visiting of the past. Prayer. Pent in prison.
The last breath. Penitent spirits, the uttermost mark. Our passion plunged. Giant, risen.
The Christ of the father, compassionate, fetched in the storm
of his strides. Now burn newborn to the world double
(26:57):
natured name. The heaven flung, heart fleshed maiden unfurled. Miracle
in Mary of flame. Mid numbered. He and three of
the thunder throne. Not a doomsday dazzle in his coming.
Nor dark as he came. Kind but royally reclaiming his own.
A released shower let flash to the Shire. Not a
(27:21):
lightning of fire hard hurled. Dame at our door. Drowned.
And among our souls. Remember us in the roads. The
heaven haven of the reward, our King back. O. Upon
English souls. Let him Easter in us. Be a dayspring.
(27:46):
To the dimness of us be a crimson crested east.
More brightening her rare dear Britain. As his rain rolls.
Pride rose Prince hero of us high priest our hearts. Charities, hearths,
fire our thoughts chivalries throngs Lord.
S2 (28:24):
The music from this episode was from Love Sometimes is
by Julian Cachia. Waiting by Brianna Tamm, Johnny Bassett, Algeria
Tuesday by Aija Alsina.
S3 (28:39):
Cicada killer by Idok.
S2 (28:43):
Cicada killer killer, cicada killer by Idok. Serenity by Enzo Bellomo,
and Pure Land by Ivo. The sound design and editing
is by Nate Shepard. Shepard. You can get more poetry
from the Rabbit Room.
S3 (28:59):
By subscribing to our newsletter. Subscribing, subscribing, subscribing, subscribing subscribing
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S2 (29:11):
The I newsletter.
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At Reverend.
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Poetry.com.com.
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I think they got that.
I'm Andy Patton and this is Rhyme and Reason from
the Rabbit Room. Each season we look at the life
and work of one poet, starting with Gerard Manley Hopkins.
(00:27):
When Hopkins became a Jesuit in 1868, he burned his
poetry and swore off making any more. Then followed nearly
a decade of poetic silence in which he wrote little
to no poetry. That is, until a ship called the
Deutschland ran aground off the coast of England. Hopkins later
(00:55):
tells the story in a letter. This is what he wrote.
What I had written I burnt before I became a
Jesuit and resolved to write no more. As not belonging
to my profession. So for seven years I wrote nothing.
But when, in the winter of 75, the Deutschland was
wrecked in the mouth of the Thames, and the five
Franciscan nuns, exiles from Germany by the folk laws aboard
(01:18):
her were drowned. I was affected by the account, and
happening to say so to my rector. He said that
he wished someone would write a poem on the subject.
On this I set to work. The poem that came
(01:42):
pouring out of him was made of 35 eight line stanzas,
and it was charged with such an innovative use of
the English language, the likes of which has rarely been
seen since, let alone in 1875. Paul Mariani, a poet
and one of Hopkins's biographers, asked of the wreck of
(02:03):
the Deutschland where did this tapped energy come from? How
long had it lain dormant, waiting for this moment to
be released like a spring shower after a long winter?
And Mariani then calls it an inexorable grace, the sudden,
unexplained hundred fold resurrection of his precious, long silenced poetic gift. Now,
(02:27):
before we hear the poem, I want to mention a
few things about its structure. It has 35 eight line stanzas,
so it's a long poem, almost 300 lines in total.
It's written in two parts. Both parts reference the wreck,
but the first part is more autobiographical, also taking up
(02:48):
the theme of Hopkins's own conversion and spiritual experience, while
the second part focuses on the action and the aftermath
of the wreck itself. Margaret Ellsberg writes that this dual
structure mirrors, quote, Hopkins sense of his own internal catastrophe.
So he writes himself into the poem and takes head
(03:11):
on not only the event of the shipwreck, but also
his own sometimes turbulent, sometimes ecstatic experience of God as well.
I'm going to read you some lines that illustrate what
I mean. In the first part, you'll get autobiographical lines
like these. I did say yes. Oh, at lightning and
lashed rod. Thou heardest me truer than tongue. Confess thy terror. Oh, Christ, oh, God.
(03:38):
And you'll also get lines like these. Beyond saying sweet past,
telling of tongue, thou art lightning and love. I found
it a winter and warm father. And fondler of heart
thou hast wrung. So he's talking about God and he's
(04:02):
talking about himself, his own conversion and his own wrestling
storm wracked spirituality. He's speaking in first person. He's talking
about his confession of faith as though he were lashed
by lightning. He calls God Father, but also calls him terror.
He calls him lightning and love. He says God is
(04:24):
a fondler of heart, but the heart God holds is
also a heart. He is wrung. And the second section
of the poem focuses on the wreck itself, and you
get lines that are almost poetic narrative like these. On Saturday,
sailed from Bremen, American outward bound takes settler and seamen
tell men with the women 200 souls in the round. Oh, father,
(04:48):
not under thy feathers. Nor ever as guessing. The goal
was a shoal of a fourth. The doom to be drowned.
The plot of the poem, as it were, is, as
the title indicates, the wreck of the Deutschland itself, and
it's a scene of unfolding chaos. Bodies are swinging from
(05:12):
ropes being dashed against the waves. The passengers have taken
to the rigging because braving the icy wind and rain
means being safe from the raging sea. Hopkins describes the
cutting cold as wiry and white, fiery. People are calling
out to God throughout the night as others are swept
out to sea, pulled down into the quote, widow making
(05:36):
unchildish unfathomable deeps. If the plot of the poem is
the wreck, the meanings of the poem go far beyond
the stage action of the shipwreck. Hopkins fits a lot in.
He fits the cruelty of nature and the mystery of
(05:56):
that cruelty overseen by a good, wise and loving God.
He fits the terror of conversion. And yet and yet
the desire to belong wholly and only to one's maker,
and the slow, perilous thrum of God's hammer and anvil
work in our hearts. The poem displays the rich beauty
(06:19):
of God's creation, even in dire straits, even in the
face of death. For all its beauty, the wreck, like
so much of Hopkin's poetry during his life, was roundly
(06:40):
rejected by almost everyone who read it. It was passed
over for publication. One of his friends said, I wish
those nuns had just stayed at home, which was really
a clever and cutting way to say I do not
care for this poem. Robert Bridges, one of Hopkins closest friends,
said that he would not read it again for any money.
(07:01):
Hopkins responded to bridges in a letter saying, if it
is obscure, do not bother yourself with the meaning, but
pay attention to the best and most intelligible stanzas. If
you had done this, you would have liked it better
and sent me more serviceable criticism. But now your criticism
is of no use being only protest, and you can
almost hear him pleading for a more compassionate reading. And
(07:25):
he adds to bridges quote, I do not write for
the public. You are my public and I hope to
convert you. Now, presumably Hopkins poetry did eventually convert his friend,
because after Hopkins death, bridges would be his most hearty champion,
(07:47):
using his influence as poet laureate of England to get
his friends poetry, including the wreck of the Deutschland, immortalized
in print for all generations. Now I'm going to read
this long poem, and my advice to you would be
to take Hopkins advice to his friend. Let the sound
(08:08):
of it roll over you, if it makes sense. Great.
If it doesn't. Don't worry about it. You're just beginning
to step into a relationship with this poem. There's no
rush and there's no pressure. Like every great relationship, there
is time for a deep knowing over a long, long acquaintance.
(08:32):
So if this is your first time hearing the wreck
of the Deutschland, just experience it. Just listen. Don't try
to connect all the dots. Don't try to come to
the end of it saying, aha, I know what it
all means. Because you won't. You won't get even much
of it. Just begin the relationship. Chip. And now, with
(08:58):
all of that in mind, here is the wreck of
the Deutschland. To the happy memory of five Franciscan nuns.
Exiles by the folklores drowned between midnight and morning of
December 7th, 1875. Now mastering me. God, giver of breath
(09:27):
and bread. World. Strand. Sway of the sea. Lord of
Living and dead. Thou hast bound bones and veins in me.
Fastened me flesh. And after it almost unmade. What with
dread thy doing. And dost thou touch me afresh over
(09:48):
again I feel thy finger and find thee. I did
say yes. Oh! At lightning and lashed rod, thou hadst
me truer than tongue. Confess thy terror. Oh, Christ, oh, God,
thou knowest the walls alter. And hour and night. The
swoon of a heart. That the sweep and the hurl
(10:10):
of thee. Trod hard down with horror of height and
the midriff a strain with leaning of laced with fire
of stress. The frown of his face before me. The
hurdle of hell behind. Where? Where was. Where was a place?
I whirled out wings that spell. And fled with a
(10:33):
fling of the heart. To the heart of the host.
My heart. But you were dove winged. I can tell
carrier witted I am bold to boast. To flash from
the flame to the flame. Then Tower. From the grace
to the grace. I am soft sift in an hourglass
(10:55):
at the wall. Fast but mined with emotion. Adrift. And
it crowds and it combs to the fall. I steady
as a water in a well. To a poise, to
a pain. But roped with always all the way down
from the tall fells or flanks of the vole. A
(11:17):
vein of the gospel proffer a pressure, a principle, Christ's gift.
I kiss my hand to the stars lovely asunder. Starlight
wafting him out of it. And glow. Glory and thunder.
Kiss my hand to the dappled with damson west. Since
(11:39):
though he is under the world's splendor and wonder. His
mystery must be in stressed, stressed. For I greet him
the days I meet him and bless when I understand
not out of his bliss springs the stress felt, nor
first from heaven. And few know this swings the stroke
(12:01):
dealt stroke and distress that stars and storms deliver. That
guilt is hushed by. Hearts are flushed by and melt.
But it rides time like riding a river. And here
the faithful waver. The faithless fable and miss. It dates
from day of his going in Galilee. Warm laid grave
(12:25):
of a womb life gray manger, maidens knee, the dense
and driven passion and frightful sweat. Thence the discharge of
it there its swelling to be though felt before, though
in high flood. Yet what none would have known of it,
only the heart being hard at bay, only the heart
(12:47):
being hard at bay is out with it. Oh, we
lash with the best or worst words last. How a
lush kept plush capped slow will mouth to flesh burst
gush flush the man the being with its sour or
sweet brim in a flash full hither than last or
(13:09):
first to hero of Calvary. Christ's feet never ask if
meaning it, wanting it warned of it. Men go be
adored among men. God three numbered form. Ring thy rebel.
Dogged in den man's malice with wrecking and storm. Beyond
(13:32):
saying sweet past. Telling of tongue. Thou art lightning and
love I found it a winter and warm father. And
fondler of heart. Thou hast run. Hast thy dark descending
and most merciful, then. With anvil ding. And with fire
(13:53):
in him forged thy will. Or rather, rather than stealing
as spring through him, melt him, but master him still,
whether at once as once at a crash Paul, or
as Austin, a lingering out sweet skill. Make mercy in
all of us, out of us all mastery. But be adored,
(14:16):
be adored. King. Some find me a sword, some the
flange and the rail. Flame fang or flood goes death
on drum and storms bugle his fame. But we dream
(14:37):
we are rooted in earth. Dust. Flesh falls within sight
of us. We though our flower the same way with
the meadow. Forget that there must. The sour scythe cringe.
And the blir Cher. Come on Saturday. Sailed from Bremen.
American outward bound. Take settler and seaman. Till men with
(15:01):
the women. 200 souls in the round. Oh, father, not
under thy feathers. Nor ever as guessing the goal was.
A show of a fourth. The doom to be drowned.
Yet did the dark side of the bay. Of thy
blessing not vault them the million of rounds of thy mercy.
(15:23):
Not even them in. Into the snows she sweeps, hurling
the haven behind the Deutschland on Sunday. And so. The
sky keeps for the infinite air is unkind. And the
sea flint flake. Black backed in the regular blow, sitting
(15:46):
east northeast in the cursed quarter. The wind, wiry and white,
fiery and the whirlwind swivel. Its snow spins to the widow,
making Unchildish unfaltering deeps. She drove in the dark to leeward.
She struck not a reef or a rock, but the
(16:07):
combs of a smother of sand. Night drew her dead
to the Kentish knock. And she beat the bank down
with her bows and the ride of her keel. The
breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock and canvas
and compass. The whirl and the wheel idle forever to
waft her or wind with her. These she endured. Hope
(16:34):
had grown grey hairs. Hope had morning on. Drenched with tears.
Carved with cares. Hope was 12 hours gone and frightful
and nightfall folded. Rueful a day nor rescue. Only rocket
and light ship shone. And lives at last were washing
(16:55):
away to. The shrouds they took, they shook in the
hurling and horrible airs. One stirred from the rigging to.
Save the wild womankind below. With a rope's end. Round
the man handy and brave. He was pitched to his
death at a blow. For all his dread. Not breast
(17:17):
and braids of thew. They could tell him for hours
dandled the to and fro through the cobbled foam fleece.
What could he do with the burl of the fountain
of air Buck and the flood of the wave? They
(17:38):
fought with God's cold. And they could not and fell
to the deck, crushed them or water and drown them,
or rolled with the sea. Romp over the wreck. Night
roared with the heartbreak. Hearing a heartbroke rabble. The woman's wailing.
The crying of child without check. Till a lioness arose.
(18:00):
Breasting the babble a prophetess towered in the tumult, a
virginal tongue told. Are touched in your bower of bone.
Are you turned for an exquisite smart. Have you make
words break from me here all alone? Do you mother
(18:20):
of being in me heart, O unteachable after evil but
uttering truth, why tears? Is it tears such a melting,
a madrigal start never eldering revel in river of youth.
What can it be? This glee. The good you have
there of your own. Sister. A sister calling a master.
(18:46):
Her master and mine. And the inboard seas run. Swirling
and hauling the rash. Smart slobbering brine blinds her. But she.
That weather sees one thing. One has one Fechner. She
rears herself to the divine ears. And the call of
(19:06):
the tall. None to the men in the tops. And
the tackle. Rowed over the storms, brawling. She was first
of a five and came of a coifed sisterhood. O
Deutschland double a desperate name o worldwide of its good.
(19:29):
But Gertrude, Lily and Luther are two of a town.
Christ's Lily and beast of the waste wood. From life's
dawn it is drawn down. Abel is Cain's brother. And breasts.
They have sucked the same loathe for love. Men new
in them, banned by the land of their birth. Rhine
(19:50):
refused them. Thames would ruin them. Surf snow, river and earth. Gnashed.
But thou art above. Thou Orion of light. Thy enchanting
Poising palms were weighing the worth. Thou martyr, master, in
thy sight. Storm flakes were scroll leaved flowers. Lily showers. Sweet.
(20:15):
Heaven was a strew in them. Five. The finding and
sake and cipher of suffering. Christ, Mark. The mark is
of man's make and the word of its sacrifice. But
he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken
(20:36):
before time taken. Dearest, prized and prized stigma signal. Cinquefoil
token for lettering of the Lamb's fleece. Rudying of the
Rose flake. Joy. Fall to thee, Father Francis. Drawn to
the life that died. With the gnarls of the nails.
(20:58):
In the niche of the lance. His love scape. Crucified.
On the seal of his seraph. Arrival. And these thy
daughters and five lived and leaved. Favour and pride are sisterly.
Sealed in wild waters. To bathe in his fall. Gold
mercies to breathe in his all fire glances. Away in
(21:26):
the lovable west. On a pastoral forehead of Wales. I
was under a roof. Here I was at rest. And
they the prey of the gales. She to the black
about air to the breaker. The thickly falling flakes to
the throng that catches and quails was calling. Oh, Christ, Christ,
come quickly. The cross to her. She calls Christ to
(21:50):
her Christians her wild worst. Best. The majesty. What did
she mean? Breathe. Arch and original breath. Is it love
in her of the being as her lover had been? Breathe.
Body of lovely death. They were else minded. Then altogether
(22:10):
the men woke thee with a. We are perishing in
the weather of Nazareth. Or is it that she cried
for a crown? Then the keener to come at the
comfort for feeling the combating keen for how to the
hearts cheering the down dogged ground hugged gray hovers off
(22:33):
the j blue heavens appearing Earring of pied and peeled.
May blue beating and hoary glow height or night still
higher with belled fire and the moth soft Milky Way. What,
by your measure, is the heaven of desire. The treasure
(22:56):
never eyesight got, nor was ever guessed. What for the hearing? No,
but it was not these the jading and the jar
of the cart times tasking. It is father's that asking
for ease of the sodden with its sorrowing heart, not
danger electrical horror. Then further it finds the appealing of
(23:20):
the passion is tenderer in prayer apart other I gather
in measure her minds burden in winds burly and beat
of the in dragon it sees. But how shall I
make my room there? Reach me a fancy. Come faster
(23:41):
strike you the sight of it. Look at it loom
there thing that she there. Then the master ipse the
only one Christ king had. He was to cure the
extremity where he had cast her. Do deal Lord it
with living and dead. Let him ride her pride in
his triumph. Dispatch, and have done with his doom. There
(24:06):
are there was a heart, right? There was a single
eye read the unshakable shock night. And knew the who
and the why wording it how. But by him that
present and past heaven and earth are word of worded
by the Simon Peter of a soul to the blast
tarpeian fast, but a blown beacon of light. Jesu. heart's light.
(24:35):
Jesu made sun. What was the feast followed the night.
Thou hadst glory of this none. Feast of the one
woman without stain. For so conceived. So to conceive thee
is done. But here was heart. Thro birth of a brain.
Word that heard and kept thee. And uttered thee outright. Well,
(25:04):
she has thee for the pain, for the patience but
pity of the rest of them. Heart go and bleed
at a bitterer vein. For the comfortless unconfessed of them
know not uncomforted lovely felicitous providence. Finger of a tender
of oh of a feathery delicacy. The breast of the
(25:26):
maiden could obey. So be a bell to ring of it.
And startle the poor sheep back. Is this shipwreck, then
of harvest? Does Tempest carry the grain for thee? I
admire the master of the tides of the. Your flood
(25:47):
of the years. Fall the recurve and the recovery of
the gulfs sides, the girth of it and the wharf
of it. And the wall. Staunching quenching ocean of emotional mind.
Ground of being. And the granite of it past all grasp.
God throned behind death with a sovereignty that heeds but hides, bodes,
(26:11):
but abides. With a mercy that outrides the all of water.
An ark for the listener, for the Lingerer with a
love glides lower than death and the dark a vein
(26:34):
for the visiting of the past. Prayer. Pent in prison.
The last breath. Penitent spirits, the uttermost mark. Our passion plunged. Giant, risen.
The Christ of the father, compassionate, fetched in the storm
of his strides. Now burn newborn to the world double
(26:57):
natured name. The heaven flung, heart fleshed maiden unfurled. Miracle
in Mary of flame. Mid numbered. He and three of
the thunder throne. Not a doomsday dazzle in his coming.
Nor dark as he came. Kind but royally reclaiming his own.
A released shower let flash to the Shire. Not a
(27:21):
lightning of fire hard hurled. Dame at our door. Drowned.
And among our souls. Remember us in the roads. The
heaven haven of the reward, our King back. O. Upon
English souls. Let him Easter in us. Be a dayspring.
(27:46):
To the dimness of us be a crimson crested east.
More brightening her rare dear Britain. As his rain rolls.
Pride rose Prince hero of us high priest our hearts. Charities, hearths,
fire our thoughts chivalries throngs Lord.
S2 (28:24):
The music from this episode was from Love Sometimes is
by Julian Cachia. Waiting by Brianna Tamm, Johnny Bassett, Algeria
Tuesday by Aija Alsina.
S3 (28:39):
Cicada killer by Idok.
S2 (28:43):
Cicada killer killer, cicada killer by Idok. Serenity by Enzo Bellomo,
and Pure Land by Ivo. The sound design and editing
is by Nate Shepard. Shepard. You can get more poetry
from the Rabbit Room.
S3 (28:59):
By subscribing to our newsletter. Subscribing, subscribing, subscribing, subscribing subscribing
to our newsletter.
S2 (29:11):
The I newsletter.
S3 (29:12):
At Reverend.
S2 (29:13):
Poetry.com.com.
S3 (29:18):
I think they got that.
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