ABSTRACT
Hopkins's imaging of the heart is set against a further set of baptismal types: Hopkins's heart weeps a 'river of youth', 'never-eldering', and the description recalls that celebrated 'fountain of water and springing up into life everlasting'. Again, it is not only the image of water, but also the idea of judgment connected with these waters, that relates the flood to its sacramental antitype in baptism: This famous scriptural passage describes Christ's death and descent into the lower world. As Hopkins describes the transformation is the work of the Spirit in the soul: In Hopkins's ode, functions as a powerful nexus of religious and mystical imagery. Hopkins evokes again a fluid baptismal imagery; the 'well' may be understood as the fountain or well of living waters. The transfiguration is a mystical 'reshaping', and it is this mystical transformation of the soul in the image of Christ and of God that Hopkins suggests.
