I do love Gerard Manley Hopkins.
For writing at the height of Victoria, he was an absolutely intrepid explorer
of poetic forms. He used assonance,
onomatopoeia and alliteration as well as rhyme. He had no fears about pushing
the limits of form to make his point. His “Pied
Beauty” is one of the
most beautiful I’ve ever heard, and I dare you to read it without your face
wanting to smile and your heart wanting to lift. It is joy captured like a
butterfly resting momentarily in your cupped hands.
Today, I’m feeling a bit
darker, so I’m offering something that appeals to my current mood.
“Carrion Comfort”
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort,
Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be —
these last strands of man
In me ór, 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
bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped
there; me frantic to avoid 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, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose
heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which
one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay
wrestling with (my God!) my God.
No comments:
Post a Comment