ear and ear.” What is more, in the poet’s case, as contrasted with that of other human beings, when he is inspired to poetic utterance, or when (in Milton’s words) he is “soaring in the high region of his fancies with his garland and singing robes about him”, then his eyes come as it were closer together. And then he is enabled to look even more penetratingly into the unity of his object. Or, on the other hand, it may be said that then his eyes acquire an even more advanced stereoscopic vision. And then he can look even more deeply into the heart of his object. Then he is no longer standing on this “sure and firm-set earth”. But he is raised with the angelic muses to look down, as Shakespeare continues, “from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven”. Then he receives the gift of what Germans call Erhebung, or a kind of interior feeling of levitation. Such is granted to saints as well as poets, enabling them to see and tell (again in Milton’s words) “of things invisible to mortal sight”.
“On ear and ear.” Now let me pursue my interrogation concerning poetic insight from eyes to ears. In the case of eyes there is a certain unity characteristic of a poet’s eye. It comes when he is inspired by what Shakespeare calls “a muse of fire”, such as ascends “the brightest heaven of invention”. But now what about the poet’s ears? Can we say that they also have to be unified in the same way? No, I am afraid the stereoscope applies only to the eyes, not to the ears. Perhaps it is because the ears are too far apart on the head of most human beings. Perhaps it is because the addition of “scope” to “stereo” in the word “stereoscope” refers only to seeing with the eyes, not to hearing with the ears.
“On ear and ear.” This is why Hopkins begins his poem on “The Sea and the Skylark” with a separate mention of each ear, “On ear and ear”. And then he follows it up with an enumeration of “two noises”, each of which is “too old to end”. They are not, he notes, the same noises coming from opposite directions to his two ears. They are two different noises as specified in the title of his poem.
“On ear and ear two noises.” One is the noise of the sea, as the waves break against the shore – or as Shakespeare puts it in the opening words of another sonnet, “Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore.” The other is the noise, or rather the song, of a skylark as he rises from the land. Then he seems (in the poet’s wondering imagination) to “pour and pelt music, till none’s to spill nor spend”.
“On ear and ear two noises.” Here are two different sounds entering into the auditory sense of the poet by his two separate ears, one from the sea by his right ear, the other from the land by his left ear. He is walking along the Welsh coast near the town of Rhyl in a westward direction. But once they enter into his auditory sense, by a strange transformation they are changed from two into one by means of comparison and contrast.
“On ear and ear two noises.” What unifies the two sounds is not only that they are both natural, the waves of the sea and the song of the skylark, but also that they are “too old to end”. They both take their respective places in the pastoral symphony of Nature, in which each creature has its own part to play while they all harmonize together. It is what they have been doing from time immemorial, according to the plan of divine Providence.
“On ear and ear two noises.” The poet begins with the waves as they “trench”, physically on the shore in the process of breaking and metaphorically on his ear. Then he finds a similar wavy movement in the song of the skylark, as “His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeined score In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl”. Like the “storm flakes” in The Wreck of the Deutschland, the score of the skylark’s song is implicitly compared to “scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers” in which “sweet heaven is astrew”. After all, how is sound conveyed to the human ear but in waves, whether from the sea or from the skylark?
“On ear and ear two noises.” Such are the noises, or sounds, that form what Henry Vaughan calls “the great chime and symphony of Nature”. Then what about man? Does he have no place, we ask, in that symphony? Or is he so superior to Nature that he has no need to condescend to such biological trifles as merely serve for his entertainment?
“On ear and ear two noises.” Well, they may be said to entertain him, inasmuch as he is “lord of the wide world and wild watery seas”. But he is only lord inasmuch as he has been placed over them by one who is higher than himself, the Lord his God. And it is for the benefit and entertainment of the Lord his God that he is expected to take his place in that same symphony. He is indued (as Shakespeare Biblically notes) “with intellectual sense and souls”, by which he has “more pre-eminence than fish and fowls”.
“Two noises.” Alas, what Hopkins now proceeds to note with lamentation is that those two natural noises, coming down to him from time immemorial, tend to “shame this shallow and frail town” of Rhyl. That town merely exists for the summer season, and for the “filthy lucre” its shop-keepers hope to gain from day or week trippers, who come pouring in from the nearby cities of Liverpool and Manchester. Then, once autumn sets in, the raucous human noises fade away, and only the natural noises remain. And so the symphony of Nature is once again resumed. Only now it is, alas, without the presence of “life’s pride and cared-for crown”. For alas, we human beings “have lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime”.
“I caught this morning morning’s minion”
“I caught.” Isn’t this the same old question that keeps on recurring? Or is it really the same? Doesn’t it change each time it is posed? And is it so very old? We say “as old as the hills”. But are the hills so very old? Isn’t it all very relative? Or rather, it isn’t just one question, but two questions that pose themselves.
“I caught.” The first is, “Who am I?” Or as the old Lear puts it, “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” And the answer is, as Lear’s Fool gives it, “Lear’s shadow.” It is Lear’s shadow, the Fool himself, who can tell Lear that Lear has become a mere shadow of himself, now that he has banished Cordelia. Thus it is Cordelia, as (in French) Coeur de Lear, who is Lear’s better self. But without her, after having banished her, Lear is no more than a shadow of himself, a mere fool. That is why in Cordelia’s absence it is the Fool who still clings to his master.
“I caught.” Before, the Fool was one with Cordelia, and so, when Cordelia is hanged, Lear laments, “And my poor fool is hanged!” But the Fool disappears in Act III, and Cordelia reappears in Act IV, only to be defeated in battle against the British forces in Act V. So when she is led to prison with her poor father, Lear exclaims in an unexpected access of joy, “Have I caught thee?” The answer to his question Cordelia has already given him in their previous moment of joyful reunion, “And so I am, I am!”
“I caught this morning.” To this same question a further echo is provided by Hopkins in the opening words of his famous sonnet, “I caught this morning.” In one reading of the poem this is the same old question of “I” and “Thou”. Or rather, it is the two questions, “Who am I?” and “Who art thou?” Or else they may be rephrased in the double Latin optative, “Noverim me” and “Noverim te”.
“I caught this morning.” At first, one may read the opening line of the poem as “I, the poet, caught sight this morning of morning’s minion, dauphin of the kingdom of daylight, the falcon (or kestrel) drawn by the dappled dawn.” Then “I” is the poet, and “Thou” refers variously to the “dauphin” and the “falcon”. Then it is the poet who catches (sight of) the falcon. So we may imagine the poet going out of the college in the early morning and catching sight of a kestrel high up in the air, and then hastening back to his room to put it all down on paper in appropriately poetic words.
“I caught this morning.”
