Abstract

In his great poem The Wreck of the Deutschland Gerard Manley Hopkins evokes the conversions of Paul and Augustine as two contrasting examples of the way in which God may intervene in human affairs: With an anvil-ding And with fire in him forge thy will Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring Through him, melt him but master him still: Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul, Or as Austin, a lingering-out sweet skill…