Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
Carrion Comfort
1Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
2 Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of man
3 In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
4Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
5But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
6 Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
7 With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
8O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoíd thee and flee?
9Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
10 Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
11Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer.
12 Cheer whóm though? The héro whose héaven-handling flúng me, fóot tród
13Me? or mé that fóught him? O whích one? is it eách one? That níght, that yéar
14 Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: The Later Poetic Manuscripts of Gerard Manley Hopkins in Facsimile, ed. Norman H. MacKenzie (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991): 281, 283. PR 4803 H44A6 1991 Robarts Library
First publication date:
1918
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/14
Composition date:
1884
-
1885
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbacdcdcd
Other poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
