Dove

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.


Peace, by Gerard Manley Hopkins


I try not to post photos of the same random things from around the house, so I searched through the thousand or so photos I have already put on blipfoto to double check on this dove which hangs just above head height in our stairwell. Right as I concluded there was no match my wife walked by and said, "Haven't you posted a photo of that already?" So I went back through a thousand or so photos again.

Who knows though. She's usually right so I might have missed something.