‘Repeat that, repeat’ (Collaborative writing)

Ruben and I are doing a collaborative writing challenge where we both write our thoughts on the poem “Repeat that, repeat” by Gerard Manley Hopkins. We’re not trying to do an academic formal analysis, rather share our own thoughts. You can read Ruben's post on his website.

If you are interested in writing your thoughts on the poem on your website, you are most welcome! Email me if you write your own reflections, and I’ll add a link to your post if you write one at the bottom of this article.

The poem

Repeat that, repeat,
Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delightfully sweet,
With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound
Off trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow hollow hollow ground:
The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound.

Source: WikiSource.

My thoughts

I have heard people talk about the musicality of poetry – how the poetry sounds when read – but I have never explicitly thought about how a poem can encourage you to think of sounds. I am not sure if that was the intention with this poem, but the words “Repeat that, repeat” make me think of sound.

When I started to think about the phrase “Repeat that, repeat”, I thought of the ephemerality of sound: how sound exists and then fades away. To what extent is the call of a cuckoo the same the next time it calls? Does it sound the same to me but would be fundamentally different with a trained ear? I wonder.

The poem contains several examples of repetition: the use of “ballad” twice, the use of “hollow” thrice. Reading the last two lines, I had to look up the word “trundled”. It means rolled. Rolling is cyclical. Ballads have repeated lines; there is some degree of cyclicality in there, too. The more I read, the more I see repetition at all levels.

Then, the final line uses the word “sudden,” which evokes a moment rather than a cycle. It feels like I am being invited to stop for a moment to think about the sound, rather than to get caught up in the flow of Nature.

I see musical words in the second two lines: “hollow” can evoke sound, “flushes” is like the flood of water. Earlier in the poem, “ear wells” is used. “Ear” evokes listening; “wells” reminds me of water. “heart-springs” – a term I have never read before – contains “springs”, which also evokes water and flowing. This poem seems to flow on and on: when I get to the end, I want to go back to the beginning. Almost like a ballad.

The use of “whole landscape” toward the end makes me think of the all-encompassing nature of sound: a sound can take the centre stage in our view of the world, to the extent that the view of the landscape changes as we hear a new sound. Now that I think about it, the landscape changes with sound, too: the call of a cuckoo may encourage another to move, the sound of water flowing indicates that water is moving; the sound radiates through the air.