Only Ever Faithful Friend
The poetry of both Gerard Manley Hopkins and Dunstan Thompson is inextricably linked with the role that friendship played in each of their lives.
By Casie Dodd
To seem the stranger lies my lot, my life
Among strangers. Father and mother dear,
Brothers and sisters are in Christ not near
And he my peace / my parting, sword and strife.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
I owe my heart
Unfettered and my soul at rest.
To you, who offer more than all my art
Can match.
–Dunstan Thompson
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) and Dunstan Thompson (1918–1975) share many parallels in their lives as Catholic poets whose faith transformed their friendships. The former, a convert from Anglicanism who remained celibate despite homosexual inclinations, and the latter, a gay lapsed Catholic who “re-converted” in adulthood and chose to remain close to his former lover in a celibate partnership, offer moving insights into the nature of friendship and how it can be transfigured into art.
Hopkins and Thompson are powerful examples of the ways that cultivating a faithful life can expand our capacities to create while still remaining true to those we love. Further, while Hopkins hoped (but failed) to convert his friend, Robert Bridges, to Catholicism, Thompson’s partner, Philip Trower, converted soon after Thompson returned to the Church. This difference in their relationships allows for further reflection on the ways that friendship can (in Hopkins’s case) work despite significant differences and (in Thompson’s) lead to transformation.
It is important to acknowledge the many similarities present both in these poets’ lives and creative work. In addition to (or because of) their common sexual inclinations and Catholic commitments, we see significant shifts in each poet’s development over time, which also led to a lack of popularity or accessibility during their lifetimes. At the same time, both poets maintained some measure of unity across their writing as they came to inhabit their faith more fully. Finally, Hopkins and Thompson were both known to have distinctive, original personalities and were influenced by significant male friendships throughout their lives. However, while the former was often alienated from his peers creatively and spiritually, the latter found deeper communion with his friend after giving up the romantic aspects of their relationship and committing to a shared life of faith and creativity.
Many readers are likely familiar with the general narrative of Hopkins’s life: a lonely Catholic convert turned Jesuit priest-poet, misunderstood by friends and fellow Christians alike. Robert Bridges, his closest friend to the end of his life, was unsympathetic to Hopkins’s religious beliefs and inhospitable to his poetic innovations. Although their friendship managed to withstand these differences, popular conceptions of their relationship tend to emphasize the ways in which Bridges failed to support his friend adequately. After meeting as students at Oxford, their friendship shifted in some ways after Hopkins’s conversion as they began to lose some of the easy intimacy they had once shared. As Hopkins became increasingly devoted to his religious beliefs, his sense of God’s communion within the world led to innovations in his poetics that often clashed with poetic conventions of the time. Bridges did not appreciate either turn in his friend’s life. He declared, for example, after reading Hopkins’s masterpiece, Wreck of the Deutschland, that he would not read it again for any amount of money. In the wake of Hopkins’s death, he also stated that the Jesuits had destroyed him.
Despite these conflicts, it would be unfair to Bridges to portray their friendship entirely in negative terms. Bridges and Hopkins maintained regular correspondence and shared their poetry with each other, offering feedback and encouragement as their lives followed different paths. As readers of Hopkins know, we also have Bridges to thank for bringing his friend’s poetry into the public sphere after his death. Despite Bridges’s misgivings about Hopkins’s poetics—as immortalized in his notorious Editor’s Preface to the First Edition (1918)—it remains worth remembering that he still maintained enough loyalty to keep Hopkins from falling into obscurity. In fact, one could interpret his efforts as an attempt to make his friend’s work more accessible to public tastes, perhaps with the hope of enabling Hopkins to feel less isolated or undervalued. However, Hopkins made it clear to his friend that he had no interest in writing for “the public” and refused to compromise in his life’s work (in poetry or in ministry), making it his central goal to “convert” Bridges to his way of thinking. Although he was unsuccessful, their friendship nonetheless served a meaningful purpose in both of their lives.
Still, as he struggled with feeling misunderstood—both spiritually and creatively—by the people he cared for the most, Hopkins continued to devote himself to a vocation that made him progressively less able to relate fully to other people. His sermons were often not well received; he did not enjoy teaching; his ministry sent him to lonely places that kept him physically separated from his friends, which made any kind of regular connection with them tenuous. Hopkins’s sense of alienation from loved ones had significant consequences for his writing. In broad strokes, we see in his poetry frequent themes of isolation and dissatisfaction with the things (and people) of this world except in terms of how they illuminate our ability to see and commune with God. Hopkins’s sacramental poetics is most famously exemplified in works such as “God’s Grandeur,” “The Windhover,” and “Pied Beauty.”
When considering the role of friendship in his work, the poems “Where art thou friend, whom I shall never see,” and “Myself unholy, from myself unholy” bear closer examination. In “Where art thou, friend…” Hopkins addresses an acquaintance (Bridges’s cousin) with whom he’s had a falling out. Critics believe he had a homosexual attraction to this person, thus making this sonnet an attempt to grieve those feelings and to redirect that affection into a love for Christ. This sense of lack in human relationships permeates Hopkins’s writing, finding fuller expression as early as a few poems later in “Myself unholy, from myself unholy.” In this sonnet, Hopkins observes “the sweet living of my friends” and reflects upon the ways that each is marred by sin: “He has a sin of mine, he its near brother; / Knowing them well I can but see the fall.” While not discounting his friends entirely, there is a clear sense of “melancholy” as he feels his “trust confused, struck, and shook” in the hope that he could fill his need for community through human relationships. This disappointment leads him to conclude, “No better serves me now, save best; no other / Save Christ: to Christ I look, on Christ I call.” As an all-or-nothing kind of person, Hopkins determines that only the “best” source of friendship will enable him to pursue a truly meaningful life.
This hope became more fully realized in his later poetry. As Hopkins’s continual lack of kindred spirits in his personal life impelled him to channel his energy toward poetry and ministry, writing became a source of consolation that was also a (mostly private) outlet for what he was unable to express in other areas of his life. In the process, Jesus continues to be the primary “friend” figure in Hopkins’s poetry even as he struggles with deep loneliness. This conflict is best exemplified in the “terrible sonnets” that he wrote near the end of his life. Exiled in Ireland and overworked in a job for which he was ill-suited, Hopkins became increasingly miserable. By 1881, he wrote in a letter to his friend Richard Watson Dixon, “I would gladly live all my life, if it were so to be, in as great or a greater seclusion from the world and be busied only with God.” His sonnet, “To seem the stranger,” picks up where “Myself unholy” leaves off, expanding Hopkins’s sense of loneliness to include his family and location. Here, Christ has now become “my peace my parting, sword and strife.”
It is important to note, however, that Hopkins does not doubt Christ’s love in these poems. Instead, a more candid type of honesty emerged in the later poems as Hopkins became more able to acknowledge the complex experience of “friendship” with divinity. In “Thou art indeed just, Lord,” for instance, Hopkins asks, “Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, / How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost / Defeat, thwart me?” Evoking the voice of the Psalmist, Hopkins engages with God with the kind of frankness that can come with deeper life experience—not unlike the kind of intimacy that can grow between friends as they share their lives together. After lamenting the various levels on which Hopkins feels his life has been a failure, expressing his fullest self to God, he does not end in despair but offers up a simple request: “Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.” By bookending the sonnet with acknowledgements of God’s sovereignty, we see Hopkins grounding his struggles within the context of true, growing faith. He remains ultimately hopeful that there is still life waiting in his “roots” to be found.
It seems fitting that Hopkins closed his work with a thoughtful plea to his closest (mortal) friend in his final poem, “To R.B.” The poem is a moving “explanation” to Bridges about the long and hard labor Hopkins has undergone to produce his poetry, expressing his hope in relatively simple terms: “Sweet fire the sire of muse, my soul needs this; / I want the one rapture of an inspiration.” Despite their ongoing differences throughout their friendship, Hopkins continues to share himself with Bridges while recognizing, “with some sighs,” the inevitable incompleteness of their connection. By the end of his life, in reading his poetry, Hopkins seems to have become more able to accept Christ as his fullest picture of true communion, for he has discovered that “I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am.”
Ultimately, each man’s poetry is in some ways inextricably linked with the role that friendship played in their lives.
Dunstan Thompson’s life is much less well known but equally compelling as a case study in friendship and creative expression. As a nearly forgotten poet of the mid-twentieth century, recent critical efforts to revive interest in him have helped begin to restore him to current discussions of modern Catholic writers. Thompson was raised Catholic in the U.S. before lapsing in practice in his college years. During this time, he sought affairs with other men and became a rising star in the literary world. He also served in London during World War II, a theme which permeates his early poetry. Eventually, Thompson met Philip Trower, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. However, after the two began a romantic relationship and lived together as lovers for several years, Thompson decided to return to Catholicism in 1952; Trower would also convert six months later. As a result, they ended the sexual elements of their relationship and were granted permission to remain together in chaste friendship. Thompson continued to write poetry for the rest of his life, although he disappeared from prominence and settled into a quieter life with Trower in rural England.
This biography has generated controversy, as critics tend to interpret the development of Thompson’s life through particular lenses. In the context of friendship, however, his relationships seemed overall to have had a much more positive effect than those of Hopkins. Although there seem to be several parallels between their experiences, in Hopkins’s case, what became a major source of alienation instead redeemed Thompson’s ability to relate to other people. As his and Trower’s lives developed in similar directions, it enabled Thompson to find true communion and, as a result, to build a more peaceful life.
This evolution can be traced in his poetry as well. Thompson’s early poetry is primarily haunted by the War and his fleeting encounters with men. Several poems such as “Largo” and “Nor Mars His Sword” are dedicated to his friends. “Largo” is dedicated to his longtime friend from Harvard, William Abrahams. Early in the poem, Thompson echoes Hopkins’s early sentiments about friendship when he opens, “Of those whom I have known, the few and fatal friends, / All were ambiguous, deceitful, not to trust.” However, a key difference emerges in the second stanza: “All friends are false but you are true.” While the rest of the poem becomes a grave reflection on the griefs of war, Thompson also portrays his friendship with Abrahams as a steady source of consolation. Although we can hear a mournfulness for the dissatisfying nature of human relationships, the poet still values the glimpses of companionship he has experienced. Near the end of the poem, Thompson declares, “So, likewise, you and I, / Who with the butchered ghost must stalk the battlements, / Shall watch—cold-comfort guards—how lonely line the tents / Where strangers sleep together just before they die.” Thompson had an early understanding that his need for human connection would inevitably be incomplete, requiring multiple channels of expression. Still, his friendships gave him a certain level of comfort in the midst of turmoil.
After Thompson’s return to the Church, his poetry also underwent a transformation. As his subject matter increased in range, his voice became more objective and balanced. On one level, this seems to be the opposite process that occurred in Hopkins’s poetry, as the earlier poet became progressively more isolated and inwardly focused. However, in both cases, a deepening relationship with God led to a simultaneous desire to express that love through devotional poetry and to find God reflected in other parts of his creation.
For example, Thompson’s sonnets “San Salvador” and “Fragment for Christmas” each employ the language of friendship in relation to Christ, a trope we also saw in Hopkins’s work. In “San Salvador,” Thompson both opens and closes the poem with mentions of friendship—first describing Christ as “Friend of the friendless” before declaring at the end how God “entreat[s] us to prove / His friends and live forever in His love.” “Fragment for Christmas” also calls Jesus our “only ever faithful friend.” In each piece, this language becomes more powerful within the context of understanding what Thompson had gone through on the way to rediscovering Christ as “the One who cares / For every lonely, frightened, desperate man.” We can infer that the poet has come to this conclusion through intimate firsthand experience, finding friendship in Christ that had painfully eluded him during his years of grief and disordered living. Although the particulars of his process toward “re-conversion” remain somewhat of a mystery, it is clear that he became disillusioned with the unhealthy lifestyle that largely preoccupied him during his years away from the Church. Having found alternative forms of friendship lacking, Thompson became able to rest within the knowledge that Christ’s love remains inexhaustible.
But how did the later poet come to this conclusion so differently than Hopkins? It seems to me that the quality and character of their friendships may provide at least partial answers. Although Hopkins moved closer to God in the midst of his loneliness, he never stopped struggling with the feeling that his life had not turned out as he had hoped. He suffered from his peers’ inability to understand or support him adequately. In the case of Thompson, however, Trower remained by his side and helped him build a faithful and creative life. Thompson’s other friends also continued to support his poetry and visited him often. While Hopkins also benefited from Bridges’s encouragement to write and his ongoing presence through their correspondence, it is clear that Thompson had the advantage in terms of edifying relationships and active community.
This distinction is evident in Thompson’s late sonnet “Dedication.” Similar in some ways to Hopkins’s final poem, “To R.B.,” “Dedication” addresses Trower and offers an explanation of his life’s work. However, whereas Hopkins offers his affection to Bridges “with some sighs,” Thompson’s sonnet overflows with gratitude. His poem opens,
Your friend? I am. In every way I can
Be—failing often, yet succeeding too.
Not as an angel, simply as a man,
I make a present of myself to you.
By offering both himself and his poems to his closest friend, Thompson’s voice indicates a sense of peace as he nears the end of his life—a restfulness that tended to elude Hopkins. Although neither poet became commercially successful through their writing, Thompson seemed comforted enough in his companionship with Trower to feel that he could separate himself from his creative work in ways that Hopkins was largely unable to do. In other words, by learning to build a life of friendship and love with another person, Thompson achieved a kind of security and stability that Hopkins was resigned to live without. As Thompson experienced true communion with Trower, he felt that in his poetry “my gift and skill / Together worked the best that I could do” without feeling tethered to the “winter world” that Hopkins inhabited in his work.
Ultimately, each man’s poetry is in some ways inextricably linked with the role that friendship played in their lives. For Hopkins, his friends were loyal yet unable fully to appreciate the scope of his spirit and creativity. This disconnect had significant effects on his quality of life and drove him to express that lack of understanding through his poetry. Christ for Hopkins became not only a symbol of communion but the very source of his life and primary consolation that he need not feel entirely alone. Thompson, on the other hand, was similarly pulled toward Christ but was able to share that faith with the most important person in his life. As a result, Thompson managed to craft a contented kind of life that enabled his poetry to expand into less personal subjects as he found his own need for understanding satisfied.
This difference is not to claim superior quality for the later poet’s work—Hopkins’s poetry is now widely considered some of the greatest English-language poetry ever written, and for good reason—but simply to observe the ways that their human relationships influenced how they related to their faith and their writing. One measure of the depth of each friendship can be demonstrated by considering Bridges’s and Trower’s perspectives. For the latter, Trower remained deeply loyal to Thompson and credited him as the source of much happiness as well as spiritual support. He said, for example, “I often think that had I not had Dunstan to guide me in matters of faith, I would easily have lost my way.” Bridges would never have said the same for Hopkins. However, when he finally published his friend’s poems in 1918, he did include a rather moving sonnet of his own in dedication. I believe the sestet sums up the best of Bridges in how he wanted his friend to be remembered:
Hell wars without; but, dear, the while my hands
Gather’d thy book, I heard, this wintry day,
Thy spirit thank me, in his young delight
Stepping again upon the yellow sands.
Go forth: amidst our chaffinch flock display
Thy plumage of far wonder and heavenward flight!
Casie Dodd lives in Arkansas with her husband and two children. Her writing has appeared in This Land, Ekstasis, and other journals. She writes online for Dappled Things.