The Windhover - For Chorus and Piano

Contact if interested in this piece.

​Commissioned in honor of the 50th anniversary of the merger of Plymouth Congregational Church and Macalester Presbyterian Church, and dedicated to the
Macalester Plymouth United Church Chancel Choir, Brad Bradshaw, director.


The Windhover
To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in
his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and
gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, —the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!


Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

​No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)