In 1886 a small house party in Dublin hosted two of the greatest poetic voices in the history of the English language. Gerard Manley Hopkins and WB Yeats were worlds apart in terms of demeanour, stature, temper and outlook, but both bridged the artistic accomplishments of the Victorian era to the Modernist age, and propounded their own theories and preferences about religion, beauty and the mysteriousness of life via their verse. Hopkins and Yeats inspired and/or intimidated almost every major English-language poet in the 20th century, but what did these giants actually talk about? Absolutely nothing, apparently. They barely even acknowledged one another.