The Windhover
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Hopkins to Bridges, May 31, 1879:

I shall shortly send you an amended copy of The Windhover; the amendment only touches a single line, I think, but as that is the best thing I ever wrote. I should like you to have it in its best form.

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king- 
    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-d'awn-drawn Falcon, in his riding 
    Of the r'olling level 'undern'eath him steady 'air, & str'iding 
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, 
    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl & gliding 
    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding 
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty & valour & act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion 
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, o my chevalier! 

No w'onder of it: sh'eer pl'od makes pl'ough down s'illion 
    Shine, & blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, 
Fall, g'all thems'elves, & g'ash g'old-verm'ilion.

1877-9 

There is no other poem of comparable length in English, or perhaps in any language, which surpasses its richness and intensity or realised artistic organisation. There are two or three sonnets by Shakespeare which might be put with Donne's At the round earth's for comparison and contrast with this sonnet. But they are not comparable with the range of experience and multiplicity of integrated perception which is found in The Windhover.

Marshall McLuhan, 1975.

Hopkins's skill as represented in this poem is most unmistakably that of a great poet.

F.R. Leavis, 1929.