Treasures of the Bodleian

Hopkins described his visit to Inversnaid in a letter to a friend: ‘I hurried from Glasgow one day to Loch Lomond. The day was dark and partly hid the lake, yet did not altogether disfigure it but gave a pensive or solemn beauty which left a deep impression on me. I landed at Inversnaid for a few hours’. This is the manuscript of the poem he wrote during, or soon after, the visit. An enraptured evocation of wild nature, and a plea to preserve it, Inversnaid seems especially relevant today.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘Inversnaid’, read by Dr John Filling, St John’s College