Monday, September 14, 2009

I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

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        5
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;        10
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

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