Felix Randal the farrier, oh, is he dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?

Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended.

This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal.

How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

 

“Felix Randal” is a Petrarchan sonnet penned by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), an Englishman and a Catholic priest who was both a musician and also a poet — a poet of such wild originality that I’ve often speculated his prosodic imagination must surely have come from some madman-like admixture of the private music inside his brain, combined with syntax influenced by his deep knowledge of Latin.

Hopkins wrote “Felix Randal” in 1880, but this poem was not published until 1918, almost thirty years after Hopkins was dead.

George Orwell thought “Felix Randal” the greatest short poem in the English language.

I myself consider “Felix Randal” Hopkins’s best poem, which is saying a great deal, because his poems mean and have long meant so much to me. I first read Hopkins when I was nineteen-years-old. I’ve not stopped reading him since. I will never stop reading him.

Over the years, I’ve gone back and forth over which of his poems I consider his greatest accomplishment, and “Felix Randal” is the one I now choose.

As I’ve mentioned before, Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of the very few poets whom I will perfervidly call a true original —  he’s at the very top of my list, in fact, the most original of them all.

Because of his originality  – sourced, I believe, inside the Latin-soaked strangeness of his musical brain  –  Hopkins’s syntax as well as his language and diction, his meter and metric, his entire writing-style (and his subject-matter too), are often cryptic and odd, difficult to decode. Many people don’t think Hopkins is worth the effort it takes to decode his literature, and though I disagree, I nonetheless don’t begrudge anyone this assessment.

Once decoded, Hopkins’s poems yield up incredible things, and many of these poems never stop yielding, no matter how many times you reread them. In this regard, there’s only one poet who’s superior, and that poet is Shakespeare. This is my opinion.

As I’ve also discussed, the Petrarchan sonnet  –  or Italian sonnet, if you prefer (the two terms are synonymous)  –  is a sonnet which, like the English or Shakespearean sonnet (those two terms are also synonymous), contains a total of fourteen lines all of which having a rhyming mate. In the Petrarchan sonnet, as distinguished from the Shakespearean, the first eight lines (the octet) follows a strict ABBAABBA rhyme-pattern, and then in the second section (the sestet), the final six lines are usually patterned CDCDCD. I say “usually” because in Petrarchan sonnets, sestets can vary in their rhyme-scheme. The pattern Gerard Hopkins chose for “Felix Randal,” as he did for most of his other Petrarchan sonnets, is the most traditional.

(One of the two primary differences between the Shakespearean sonnet and the Petrarchan sonnet is that the Shakespearean consists of three quatrains rhyming ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, and concludes with a couplet: GG. The other difference is that Petrarchan sonnets contain, almost by definition, a dramatic shift between the octet and sestet. Traditionally this dramatic shift is demarcated by a space after the octet. The Shakespearean sonnet doesn’t possess this.)

“Felix Randal” was written about a real-life person, a farrier in Liverpool named Felix Spencer, who died of tuberculosis. Hopkins in the capacity of priest administered to this dying man, who was once so strong and vital and powerful — “powerful amidst peers” — and who was also a boisterous and happy man.

There is in this entire poem a subtle sense of softness and serenity, even in dying: serenity in coming to terms with death and joy in life and vitality, joy in work, joy in strength and health.

Gerard Hopkins the compassionate priest administered to Felix when Hopkins was living in Bedford Leigh, not far from the city of Liverpool.

There’s something else I think critical to grasp in order to unlock the full mysterious power of “Felix Randal,” and that something else is the specific meaning of the word “farrier”:

Many think of the word as synonymous with “blacksmith,” but this isn’t quite accurate. The work of the farrier is related to the work of the blacksmith, but they’re not the same thing.

Farriers are a subdivision of blacksmithing.

Farriers work with horses specifically, and though farriers do require considerable training in blacksmithing, so that they may properly craft horseshoes and other tack and mend these things (or “fettle,” as Hopkins so excellently describes it, and mending is indeed the major theme of this entire poem), farriers are nonetheless more specialized than blacksmiths.

A blacksmith, on the other hand, is a smithy who works with iron but may never have any dealing with horses at all, or horse equipment.

The reason I regard this point as important is primarily for the last lines of the poem, which fully concretize the theme of mending — I’ll come to this again below — and which elevate this poem to a level mythic and eternal.

Observe first the way Gerard Hopkins opens his poem:

“Felix Randal the farrier, oh, is he dead then…”

Some quack commentators and faux critics have imagined they’ve seen in this opening an almost offhand, even indifferent response to some piece of trivial, quotidian news. This is dreadfully wrong, a misbegotten and even boorish misreading of the opening lines.

What Hopkins has actually captured in his opening is a sense of finality and closure — a human being whom Hopkins, through administering to a man while this man was sick and slowly dying, Hopkins grew to love: “my duty all ended,” writes Hopkins the poet-priest, the compassionate, intelligent, God-obsessed, huge-hearted human:

“Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?”

Notice also that this entire first stanza is interrogative  —  it ends with a question mark  –  and this one thing alone obliterates any idea or interpretation of triviality or offhandedness on the part of the priest-poet. And so do the following words and their repetition: “Pining, pining…”

A “big-boned and hardy-handsome” man, so alive and strong, “pining, pining …”

Do you know who would write something like that? Who would phrase something like this in that way, I mean?

I’ll tell you: Someone who understands and feels the pure passion of a human-being at the moment his life gives way to death. The word “passion,” never forget, means “suffering.” Passion is the word born to mean suffering.

Any commentator or critic who does not see this in that opening stanza is out of his depth.

Pining until his reason had gone, Felix Randal’s various ailments (“Fatal four disorders”) fought within him for dominance, and in so doing reduced him to rambling. That is one possible and legitimate way to interpret it.

Note also Hopkins’s peculiar syntax there: he does not say “four fatal disorders” but rather “fatal four disorders.”

This, I believe, is a reference to the four humors of humorism  – the system of medicine which was first created by the Greeks and became popular throughout Europe up until the 19th century, when modern medicine began taking its place.

Or perhaps it’s more the fact that they are fatal which Hopkins the poet and priest considers the important thing to highlight here  –  specifically, how the different diseases wracked Felix’s body and drove Felix half-mad by robbing him of his reason. That’s also a legitimate interpretation.

Here’s the second stanza:

Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended.

First, Felix cursed at his illness  –  cursed in anger and then refused to accept it, which is now called denial.

Please allow me to interrupt myself here and also call your attention to the ingenious rhymes from the beginning to the end of this poem, the sheer subtlety and lyric beauty of this intricately rhythmic piece.

As time passed Felix’s anger calmed  –  he was “anointed” –  helped and comforted by Hopkins the priest. This is surely what Hopkins means in using the word “mended”: Felix was mended psychologically, in soul. He grew calm and came to peace, and Hopkins the kind and gentle priest helped Felix reach this state tranquility.

Yet was that God’s plan?

This is an interesting question and an interesting part of the poem  — a question and idea about which I’ve thought a great deal. It’s difficult to answer for sure: because prior to Hopkins ever coming to administer to Felix a “heavenlier heart” had decided Felix’s path “Months earlier” than the time at which Hopkins “had our sweet reprieve and ransom tendered to him.”

Had Felix already begun thinking of God and praying, going to church, perhaps, where Hopkins gave mass, several months before he was sick? This is also a possible and legitimate interpretation.

Oh, but what delicate writing that stanza contains.

I’d also like to call your attention to these words as well: “tendered to him.”

Not “tended” or “attended” or even “mended,” though clearly with those connotations too, but “tendered.”

This poem teems with tenderness.

Tenderness is its essence, its distinguishing characteristic. This poem is filled with authenticity and compassion and caritas, and it is moving and very beautiful.

The lines of that stanza conclude with Hopkins the priest asking that God give rest to Felix for any offenses Felix may have ever caused, as who among us has not?

Gerard Hopkins the poet then takes three lines to described how Felix’s illness created a bond between them and endeared them to each other. They are connected through tears and touch and through compassion and caring:

This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal.

Seeing humans in this way  –  sick, but also angry and then at peace — it endears them to us, Hopkins says. But take special note what Hopkins says right after that: “us too it endears.”

The sick and dying human is endeared to the visitor who in coming to see him brings succor and comfort, calm and a sense of serenity.

A connection is thus born between these two human beings.

This is an insight and an observation (on Hopkins’s part) of pure poignancy and profundity: there has developed a genuine love between them both, because there is succor and there is compassion, and they both know that they’re nearing the end of a human life, which is always important and never to be taken lightly or treated lightly.

The next two lines strikes me as the most heartfelt and touching lines in this entire heartfelt and touching poem. It describes how Gerard Hopkins’s touch brought comfort to Felix, in Felix’s final days and hours, and that Felix Randal’s tears also, in turn, touched Gerard Hopkins’s heart equally:

My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal.

Those two lines capture so much  –  foremost of all the purity of lovingkindness.

Here’s the final stanza:

How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

This poem, please note, ends in happiness and celebration.

“Felix Randal” is a poem of celebration.

That is what makes “Felix Randal” one of literature’s very greatest miniature masterpieces.

Gerard Hopkins has taken us, in all of fourteen lines, into the minds and circumstances of these two humans, and Hopkins ends not in pity or pathos but in pure celebration of Felix Randal, a strong and healthy human whom Hopkins had come to love — a man “powerful even amidst his peers,” who as farriers swinging huge heavy hammers the live-long day and pounding out brute iron slag, were each powerful, down to the last man, yet Felix was the strongest and greatest of them all.

Felix Randal was also a happy human (“all thy more boisterous years”), and back in those beautiful days of youth when Felix was so powerful and happy, how far away from forethought it all was  –  all this sickness and death, as it should have been and should always be. Because when we’re vital and healthy and happy, there’s life to be lived and it should be lived.

The goal and purpose of life is life.

This is what I believe Hopkins is saying in the poem “Felix Randal.”

Revel, oh young humans in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth.

But when sickness and death comes, the tenderness and compassion of others are of equal importance, and it’s one of many things that endears us to one another.

Finally and perhaps most remarkable of all, observe the closing image, almost a metaphor but not quite, which Gerard Hopkins, in all his poetic genius, uses to capture the beauty of youth and strength that the drayhorse and young Felix both embody  –  the beauty and happiness and the vitality that Felix Randal had contained: how Felix fettles (mends) for the great gray drayhorse (drayhorses were the horses that pulled the heaviest loads –  which is to say that they were the strongest of the horses, as Felix was the strongest of his peers) — how Felix fettles for this great horse a bright and battering sandal.

Hopkins the poet made Felix the farrier’s mended horseshoe into a sandal.

And is there a Christlike intimation in the terminology of sandal — Christ who washed the feet of his disciples?

Felix Randal tendered to the great gray drayhorse, similar to the way in which Gerard Hopkins tendered to Felix Randal, similar to the way in which Christ tendered to his disciples.

They each mended for other living beings and were enriched thereby.

“Sandal” rhymes with “Randal.”

And do you see that drayhorse’s sandal which Felix mended flashing brightly in the life-giving sun? Do you hear it ring-out when the living drayhorse clops — the bright and battering sandal that Felix mended, child Felix, Felix Randal?

I do. I do, indeed. And I feel the beauty and passion and compassion in the mould of the mended man and the mending priest, and in the mould of the mended horseshoe-sandal which was mended by Felix Randal.

The poetic power and depth of this is unimaginable, and if you’re not familiar with this poem, I envy you your new discovery. It’s as deep as the sea, and I hope that you’ll read it and reread it all your life, as I have done, because you’ll never tire of it, and it will continually yield up new meaning and poignancy, and it will touch your heart more and more each time you read it, depending upon the events of your life and your own circumstances at any given time.

The lovingkindness and tenderness that Gerard Manley Hopkins captured in his purely profound poem will never diminish for you or fade, but only grow.

This I know.