the one rapture of an inspiration

I was in a Hopkins mood today, and then K. found me the right one. I actually asked her to read a different poem on the same page, and then she was like, "no post this one," and she was absolutely right. In the 1918 notes, Robert Bridges writes that this was the last poem G. M. H. sent to him.

The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong
Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame,
Breathes once and, quenchèd faster than it came,
Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song.
Nine months she then, nay years, nine years she long
Within her wears, bears, cares and moulds the same:
The widow of an insight lost she lives, with aim
Now known and hand at work now never wrong.
     Sweet fire the sire of the muse, my soul needs this;
I want the one rapture of an inspiration.
O then if in my lagging lines you miss
The roll, the rise, the carol, the creation,
My winter world, that scarcely breathes that bliss
Now, yields you, with some sighs, our explanation.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), "To R. B. April 22, '89." Received in Autograph by R. Bridges on April 29. This is actually a more traditional sonnet than many of his, but god did Hopkins have a way with the sonnet.