The Windhover

The bird that gives the poem its title represents a number of things. More than anything, though, the bird is a representation of Christ in its ability to master the natural world with power and grace and in the way it hovers in the sky above all else, waiting for a moment to descend to the earth only to once again return to the sky. The bird has complete control over all elements of the world. It is able to withstand the power of the wind and gravity by hovering in place despite the forces acting against it. And the bird serves as a symbol for how the soul, when it opens and becomes aware of how the world expresses beauty and redemption, can achieve mastery of a thing.

Perhaps the most complex movement of the poem is the section about “the fire that breaks from thee then” (Line 10). The fire is the first image in a string of metaphorical images that express the way the world, like Christ, renews itself. Upon buckling, a fire emerges to take the place of the buckled, collapsed thing. “Buckle” (Line 10) suggests something that has fallen over or lost its strength, but from that loss comes the passion, energy, movement, and warmth of a bright fire a billion times more bright, lovely, and dangerous than anything else.