Analysis of Carrion Comfort
Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844 (Stratford, London) – 1889 (Dublin)
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of man
In me {'o}r, 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 bruis{`e}d bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avo{'i}d 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,
cheer.
Cheer wh{'o}m though? The h{'e}ro whose h{'e}aven-handling fl{'u}ng
me, f{'o}ot tr{'o}d
Me? or m{'e} that f{'o}ught him? O wh{'i}ch one? is it e{'a}ch one? That
n{'i}ght, that y{'e}ar
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.
Scheme | ABBAABBXA CDXCXAXXD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110010011111 11111111111 01111101111111 110111111111 11111100111111 1111111010111 11010011111101 101110111110111110 1 111111111101 1011111111101 110111111111 1 1111101111110110111 1111111 111111111111111111111 1111111 111101111011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 958 |
Words | 174 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 9, 9 |
Lines Amount | 18 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 336 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 86 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 210 Views
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"Carrion Comfort" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/15850/carrion-comfort>.
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