An artist has set some of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poems to music:

The Alchemist is a collection of 22 of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poems that
have been adapted to music in a variety of contemporary styles by Catholic
singer-songwriter Sean O’Leary.

The songs are in a variety of styles that reflect the feel of the original
poems, for instance: a gospel version of Pied Beauty, The Woodlark is set as
an Irish jig and Thee, God, I Come From is a hymn.

The centrepiece of the album is the first complete musical setting of The
Wreck Of The Deutschland. The five Nuns who died in the disaster and to whom
the poem is dedicated to were on their way to join their sisters in Wheaton,
USA. The Nuns continue to commemorate the memory of their sister’s tragic
deaths on 6th December each year.

The songs were premiered in July 2005 at The Gerard Manley Hopkins Society
18th Annual Festival in Monasterevin, Co Kildare, Ireland. The album was
very well received by the Hopkins’ fraternity present which included Desmond
Egan, poet and artistic director of the festival and academics such as the
Rev Joseph J. Feeney S.J. (St Josephs University, Philadelphia and co-editor
of the Hopkins Quarterly) and Rev Peter Milward SJ (Sophia University,
Japan).