Gerard Manley Hopkins was a Jesuit priest and poet who lived late in the 19th century. He was a man of profound inner tensions that would"flameout" in his poetry. His inner conflict lay between a dedication to the life of the spirit through the virtue of absolute obedience to religions superiors and an opposing sensitivity to experience which sought an outlet in originality of language. In his poetry there is nearly always the suggestion of opposing tentions, frequently expressed by a syncopated rhythm that has had a great influence on modern poetry. He is famous for nature poems which succeed in filling the natural world with divine life; but he is equally famous for poems of despair. He was a scholar who derived his theory of poetry and nature from a medieval philosopher, Scotus; and he was a theologian who worshipped a Christian God who is both transcendent of and immanent to nature. Nature for him could reveal the divine, but it is not equal to the divine; rather, it is a veil drawn across the face of divinity.