A friend recently asked whether I have been somewhat stressed lately and cited my latest poetry selections as the reason for her concern. My response is that I truly don't think that there is any connection between my moods and my Sunday night poetry selections, although I'm not sure that I want to explore the issue too deeply. In any case, I will say for certain that my selection of this poem, this week, has nothing to do with anything that is happening in my life right now. It is simply a poem that I like by a poet whose work I find interesting.

Hopkins is best known today for his poem "Pied Beauty," which, in case the name doesn't ring a bell, begins with the well-known line, "Glory be to God for dappled things." I have always enjoyed "The Leaden Echo" too, although I am quite certain that the humor that I find in this poem was not deliberately placed there by the poet. He was, after all, a dour, troubled, young Jesuit priest, who wrote this poem, which is a reflection on the fleeting nature of beauty, as a prelude to a second poem, entitled "The Golden Echo," which promises that if we give beauty back to God before death "not a hair, not an eyelash, not the least lash" will be lost. This coupling of two poems was a common Hopkins practice, in which he set anguish and rapture against each other.

But I prefer not to dwell on the intended "anguished" message in this poem. I would rather place it in the modern context of an aging, vain, and vapid Hollywood beauty who is considering her umpteenth face lift, and to enjoy the wonderful cadence, the verbal excesses, and the delightful way in which Hopkins used words, all of which are among the reasons that prompted the well-respected Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry to describe him as "one of the most original poets to write in English at any period."

You, gentle reader, can read into this poem what you will. But I hope it will bring a smile to your lips, as it always does mine, even if Hopkins did not intend for it to do so.