I Wake and Feel

"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours 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 M. Hopkins

I submit this poem to you because Hopkins writes beautiful poetry, even in his grief. Just listen to the sounds that run throughout the poem. The passages of hope have a lighter, airier sound because they use W's and soft H's and S's. When he grieves or complains, the poem slows down. Lines are broken by punctuation, shorter words, and harder sounds like G's and D's and B's and F's cause you to pause as you read it aloud..

"I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree..."
* * ___[ ]* * **[ ]* * ___ *___

You have to [stop] in the line twice. He makes a point of slowing you down to face the grim truth the lines convey.

Hopkins' poetry affects me because he is so honest, and yet so eloquent and deliberate in his composition. I pine and sigh with Hopkins as I look to escape my grief. And I realize alongside him that I have to get my own taste out of my mouth to savor God again.

-brian