ABSTRACT
Hopkins first uses these two terms inscape and instress, he coined in some notes on the early Greek philosopher Parmenides, probably made in February 1868. A further Essay, 'The Probable Future of Metaphysics', written in 1867, Hopkins went further than Ruskin in his search for absolute beauty. The horse-chestnut was one of Ruskin's favourite trees; but more important was his constant search for Nature's 'laws'. Hopkins had long been seeking a metaphysical explanation for the hold on the mind, the excitement that certain forms and patterns in nature exert on us. Hopkins's earliest poetry shows how readily and excitedly he absorbed the young Keats. The ways in which Hopkins's language exerts its remarkable power have been a major concern of critics for many years now. Like the sprung rhythm in which Welsh poetry, as he pointed out, was also written, he uses it organically to 'fetch out' his meaning.
