…in fact, reading through Felix Randal again just now–one

doesn’t think about these things from one year’s end to the next–I am

struck by what a truly superb poem it is. “Difficult”–okay; but once you

have grasped the essential idea** and got used to Hopkins’s rather odd

diction, it makes perfect sense, and there is not a word out of place. A

beautiful, beautiful gem.

**Randal is a village blacksmith who got sick, rallied, then got sick again

and died. Hopkins was his (Roman

Catholic) priest, who nursed him through it all, apparently administering

last rites at one point, and has just learned of his death.