My friend Margaret recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. In honor of the birth, she shared a birth announcement with the members of our church. It included this poem:
In the Valley of the Elwy
I remember a house where all were good
to me, God knows, deserving no such thing:
comforting smell breathed at very entering,
fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
That cordial air made those kind people a hood
all over, as a bevy of the eggs the mothering wing
will or mild nights the new morsels of spring:
why, it seemed of course, seemed of right, it should.
Lovely the woods, waters, matters, combs, vales,
all the air things wear that build this world of Wales.
Only the inmate does not correspond:
God, lover of souls, sway inconsiderate scales:
complete thy creature dear, O where it fails,
being mighty a master, being a father and fond.
Gerard Manly Hopkins
