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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

56 sec read
209

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBXA CDXCXAXXD
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 958
Words 174
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 9, 9

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Reverend Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, S. more…

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