Gerard Manley Hopkins was not in his lifetime known for being a poet; his is an example of posthumous fame to rival Emily Dickinson and Franz Kafka, both of whom were barely published until after their deaths. In fact, Hopkins in 1866 gave up poetry for Lent and later in the year joined the Roman Catholic church and became a Jesuit priest, thus estranging himself from his Protestant family. Upon joining the church, he burned his poems, fearing his own pride in them; he did not write poetry again until 1875, though he continued to journal in prose during this period. Hopkins always felt that his artistic talent was at odds with his religious devotion, that he could not revel in his talent without making his religiousness subordinate to poetry; he felt it was important to choose religious renunciation over self-expression. Though he did return to poetry in his final years, his feelings about it were never unambiguous. Tension went forever unresolved between his devotion and his writing.
In 1875 Hopkins returned to poetry to write "The Wreck of the Deutschland," a poem that reckons with the tragedy of a shipwreck in a world ruled by God's will. This poem, along with Hopkins' later poems such as "The Windhover," "The Starlight Night," and "God's Grandeur," emphasized the presence of God in nature. "God's Grandeur" in particular asks why people do not have more respect for nature, which is ever-present despite the presence of man, which pollutes it both physically and symbolically with violence and trade. However, many of these poems include images of sunlight or other bright objects which are imbued with God's energy; for example, the shining sillion in "The Windhover," the "bright boroughs" of "The Starlight Night," and the shook foil in "God's Grandeur."
However, these poems were written before Hopkins left Wales in 1977; it is believed that living in Wales afforded him a close relationship with nature, while in 1877 he left for a position as a subminister and teacher in Chesterfield, and later lived in London, Oxford, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Dublin. These places, he documented in his journal, were crushing to his spirit. These moves were reflected in his poetry; he no longer was able to identify so fully with nature, and his interest turned inward where it had once been outward, to focus on man, particularly himself but also those around him, and to find a way to shine a light on the godliness that inhabits mankind. "Felix Randal" is a perfect example of these efforts; he endows the figure of Felix Randal with grace, both in Felix's healthy years and while he was dying. The poem ends poignantly on the image of the "bright and battering" horseshoe the speaker pictures him working on; the brightness of this image recalls the light of God and focuses on Felix's strength and beauty from when he was well.
