Christus spielt an zehntausend Orten...

Am 28. Juli 1844 wurde in Stratford, Essex, Gerard Manley Hopkins geboren. Anlaß, eines meiner Lieblingsgedichte dieses großen katholischen Dichters zu posten. (Die jüngste deutsche Übersetzung von Dorothea Grünzweig in der zweisprachigen Sammlung "Geliebtes Kind der Sprache" (Edition Rugerup) steht daheim im Regal und folgt ein andermal.)

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.