The Windhover The Windhover "The Windhover" is a sonnet by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889). It was written on May 30, 1877, but not published until 1918, when it was included as part of the collection "Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins". Hopkins dedicated the poem "to Christ our Lord". "Windhover" is another name for the common kestrel ("Falco tinnunculus"). The name refers to the bird's ability to hover in midair while hunting prey. In the poem, the narrator admires the bird as it hovers in the air, suggesting that it controls the wind as a man may control a horse. The bird then
The Message in the Bottle way things actually are. Two qualifications exist for the metaphor as mistake: It must be given by an authority figure, and it must have a certain aura of mystery around it. In this way, the metaphor becomes both right (given by authority) and wrong (not strictly true as a descriptor). Percy's example is of a boy on a hunting trip who sees a bird and asks what it is. The African-American accompanying him and his father calls the bird a "blue dollar", which excites the boy until his father corrects him and tells him the bird is actually a blue