Fr. Hopkins (a Jesuit!) wrote this as a May offering for Mary in 1883, but I think it fits well today, the Feast of the Nativity of Mary… or any other Marian Feast!
We cannot tire of honoring her in different ways, including by reading poetry.
Hopkins does famous things with meter, although this poem doesn’t stray too far out of the bounds of the trimeter that we often use in hymns in the Office (in Latin, of course).
We need grace like we need air, and Mary is the consummate source of intercession. Note how she is described. She is “wild” air, and “wild” can mean many things.
A few of my favorite lines:
… I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
Mary is the Mother of Mercy… Mater misericordiae. Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve!
Enough of this. Savor.
The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Wild air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element;
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart,
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh:
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us,
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth,
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows.
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft,
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal,
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere;
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky;
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
Fold home, fast fold thy child.
Yesterday I spotted this on Twitter… just for interesting…
#OTD in 1868, Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, entered the #Jesuits. He is considered one of the greatest poets of the Victorian era. https://t.co/06Qz4AvWch pic.twitter.com/i72pfdPihP
— Jesuit News (@jesuitnews) September 7, 2025
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Father, thank you for your timely reminder that the Jesuits have a noble and courageous history of defending the teaching of the Church, even if some of today’s Jesuits are not contributing to that history.
We should also remember the Jesuit martyrs of upstate NY and Quebec, who endured torture, loneliness, and privations, but forgave and continued to serve the Native population – including St. Kateri Tekakwitha.
And my own favorite Jesuit – Fr. Willy Doyle, SJ, an Irish priest. Fr. Doyle’s cause is being investigated by the Vatican. He selflessly and courageously served as a military chaplain in the British Army during WWI and endured endless penances as he shared in the suffering of the soldiers in No Man’s Land. He died as he was bringing the comfort of the Blessed Sacrament and medical assistance to injured and dying men – British, French, German and others, friend and foe – when he was fatally hit by a sniper and left to die in battle.
Today’s Jesuits – and the rest of us – would do well to remember my Irish grandmother’s words to me: “It isn’t good enough to take up space in a pew for an hour a week. A real Catholic must be willing to suffer and even to die for our Faith.” Peace to you, Father, and to all here.