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• The following version of this poem was used to create this Lesson Plan: Hopkins, Gerard Manley. "The Windhover". Poetry Foundation. Web.

• "The Windhover" is a Petrarchan sonnet, with its octave rhymed ABBA ABBA and its sestet rhymed CDC DCD.

• An unusual feature of the octave rhymes is that the "A" rhymes are all single-syllable, masculine rhymes, while the "B" rhymes are all two-syllable, feminine rhymes--and the "A" lines are light rhymes with the "B" lines: the first four lines end in the words "king" (A), "riding" (B), "striding" (B), and "wing" (A).

• The poem is written in the "sprung meter" invented by Hopkins, in which each line has an equal number of stressed syllables, but unstressed syllables follow no predetermined pattern.

• "The Windhover" has five stressed syllables per line.

• The titular bird, the "windhover," is a kestrel, a small falcon known for the...

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