Epiphany
On top of the fervent, exuberant, often intense tone and pace of “The Windhover,” which given the religious allusions can’t but call to mind ecstatic or epiphanic experience, Hopkins’ diction, in both subtle and direct ways, echoes language used to describe such experiences. One key example is the very second word: “caught.” The speaker of course does not literally catch the bird, nor is he trying to; it’s the kestrel that’s hunting, looking to “catch” prey. But if the speaker, like the hawk, is looking to catch something, what is it? What, since it seems he succeeded, did he “catch”? An obvious association here is the phrase “to catch sight” or “catch a glimpse” of something. Less obviously, we ought to think of the words one uses to describe witnessing an awe-inspiring sight: we say “I was struck by it” or “it captivated me”, or describe things as “stunning,” and talk of being “stopped in our tracks.” Moreover, this language is strikingly similar to the language we use to describe the effect of a particularly powerful idea, a sudden realization, or an especially moving work of art (think of the ubiquitous use of “riveting,” which literally means fixed firmly in place, in the advertising blurbs on books). Thus with the phrase “I caught,” Hopkins invokes this network of associations, while at the same time inverting the usual relation, putting the speaker in the active position. Thus, epiphany is recast not as something that “seizes” hold of us, but something that, when we glimpse it, we must seek out and catch for ourselves.
Faith
While “The Windhover” is ‘about’ a kestrel, the dedication indicates it was written and is addressed “To Christ our Lord.” By choosing Christ instead of God, though perhaps partially to avoid the hubris of directly addressing Him, Hopkins is choosing to address the mortal, human part of the Creator. That is, the part that has shared in the universal human experiences of suffering and death, and, moreover, who suffered and died for humankind. And the poem suggests that the speaker feels that the sight of the kestrel has “saved” him in some sense, and specifically saved him from himself (who else but him could have put his heart into hiding?), as Christ’s death also, in a sense, was meant to save us from ourselves (our sin). To some extent, then, the speaker is offering, by way of thanks, this poem, both as a token of keen, ardent admiration for God’s creation, but also, as suggested most clearly by the images connoting death and rebirth in the last tercet, as an attempt to show Christ that his lesson did not fall on deaf ears, or, perhaps, careless eyes.
