'Farewell Angelina' is indeed difficult to fathom, but if one just lets it roll around without trying to analyse it, it really does have some power, in my view. The lines 'Just a table standing empty at the edge of the sea' and 'Fifty-two gypsies file past the guards' actually give me a shiver down the spine.

I was condemned (at the age of sixteen) to study, among other stuff, the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins at school, for my A level English Literature. I couldn't make head nor tail of the chap. But now, I absolutely love 'The Windhover'. The meaning is less important than the emotions it evokes, and I can appreciate now why GMH is viewed as a great poet.