Language Fluidity in "The Windhover"

Well first of all, I feel like I lucked out in choosing to read “The Windhover” for my recitation tomorrow. This poem has such richly descriptive and alliterative language that I think almost begs to be felt in one’s mouth and read aloud. Particularly with the inclusion of exclamatory sounds (“oh” in line 9, “ah” in line 13) and frequent exclamation points— this gives the audience a clear sense of auditory imagery… if that’s a thing? What I mean is, as I read this poem I can hear exactly how it is intended to be spoken… I even hesitate to use the word “spoken” because that has too dull of a connotation— “expressed” might be better fitting. A true sense of wonderment is expressed by the speaker of this poem as he marvels at the sight of this little bird, which is encapsulated in the lines “My heart in hiding / stirred for a bird” (7-8). Come to think of it, his language/the pace/the tone of this poem all seems to flutter just as a bird does. There are moments of immediate repetition of words, such as “morning morning’s minion” (1) and “then off, off forth…” (5), that support the sense of awe the speaker is experiencing, and how he feels that he must relay every detail of his stirring heart to his audience. It’s as if the speaker is telling this story to someone for the first time.

I love how Hopkins has a way of letting each of his words meld and drip together as he creates his own words by hyphenating strings of alliterative adjectives (“dapple-dawn-drawn” in line 2, “blue-bleak” in line 13). Line 2 is probably my favorite because I find it interesting how he split the word “kingdom” between two different lines for the sake of both alliteration and rhyme scheme (“king- / dom” in 1 and 2). I feel like the splitting of a word like this is hard to pull off, but in this case it works.