| Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918. |
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| 40. (Carrion Comfort) |
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| 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 | 5 |
| 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? | |
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| 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, | 10 |
| 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. | |
| | | See Notes. |
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