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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Comments
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I love this poem. It has been a bit rubbishly formatted here though- a bit off putting. Although I am not religious at all (agnostic, bordering on atheism) I am fascinated with poetry dealing with the poet's struggle with God. Other examples of this are Donne's sonnet "Batter My Heart, Three Personed God" and George Herbert's "The Collar". Both are wonderful. Hopkin's poem, however, is something else. I love the way his awkward syntax struggles against the formal constraint of the Italien sonnet form- representing the poet's wrestle with God perhaps?
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I think that 'Carrion Comfort' is an interesting poem because it is a good example of the search for meaning in God and how humans struggle to comprehend why certain things happen to them.
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i like it
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