Avian Animal Guides (Poetry)

How are the birds represented in these poems like and unlike animal guides? extra points for quotations from 110-134.

 Required: the two unique images and at least one unique quote from 137, 150, 151 and at least one unique quote from 138-148.

Whereas the animal guides can "warn of danger" and "help dispel fears", the birds shown in Hopkins" poems do neither (Power Animals 132). In The Windhover the windhover itself simply serves to illustrate "the mastery of the thing" rather than a guide to further conclusions (The Windhover 137). Hopkins is awestruck by the sheer "brute beauty" of it, the physical perfection with which it strikes; he describes with eloquence the colors that he sees ("blue-bleak embers", "gash gold-vermillion") rather than the true feelings involved with seeing the bird (The Windhover 137).

In flight

Instead of  sharing the experiences or even attempting to, he simply likens it to the Lord, using it as a conduit to God almost instead of as a conduit to himself and nature.

In contrast, the other works concentrate on the feelings associated with the birds, whether they be ones felt by the birds themselves ("unable misery") and the references to the physical aspects of the birds are eventually connected to the emotional aspects as well rather than simply being described for the sake of imagery ("lame feet", "clotted shoulder", "soft feminine feathers") (Hurt Hawks 150). The same is seen in Vulture, in which not only the physical but the mental experiences are described, eventually culminating in the sense of wonder that came from that perceived "enskyment"; that "life after death" (Vulture 151). As spirit animals are able to guide us through mental and emotional spheres and help us connect to nature (such as the sky), these last two depictions are possibly the closest seen so far.

 In the distance