#terrible sonnets

[jealousorchid]

Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins, "No worst, there is none."

[poem-today]

A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Carrion Comfort

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;  Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man  In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;  Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.  But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me  Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan  With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,  O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee? 

   Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.  Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,  Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.  Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród  Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year  Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

[poem-today]

A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing — Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling- ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'    O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins

1844-1889

[cwadamson]

A Retreat with Hopkins: Good Friday

A Retreat with Hopkins: Good Friday

‘No Worst’ No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief- Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old ánvil wínce and síng– Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked ‘No ling- Ering! Let me be fell: force…

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[cwadamson]

A Retreat with Hopkins: Good Friday

A Retreat with Hopkins: #GoodFriday #HolyWeek #Poetry

‘No Worst’ No worst, there is non. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief- Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old ánvil wínce and síng– Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked ‘No ling- Ering! Let me be fell: force I…

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[cwadamson]

To my fellow graduate students

To my fellow graduate students

It’s that time of year when the projects are piling up and you wonder if you’ve really matured past undergrad. I know you took that one line of criticism from your advisor to heart. I know you look around during seminars and think everyone else has it so much more together. She gets that theorist. He got laughs at his comment. And you worry that whenever you come out of your receptive silence…

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[forthelastfirsttime]

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing — Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling- ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief.' O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

Gerald Manly Hopkins

[dismantlethesun]

I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent To dearest him that lives alas! away. I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse. Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see The lost are like this, and their scourge to be As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse. Gerard Manley Hopkins