about 1301. His idea that individuality 'brickish skirt': housing developments and indusis the final perfection of any creature influenced trial complexes that were built around the perimHopkins's conception of inscape. When Hopkins eter of the city in the 19th century. came on two of Scotus's commentaries in 1872, he 3. In Paris, Scotus was influential in defending wrote that he was immediately 'flush with a new the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception?i.e., stroke of enthusiasm . . . when I took in any that Mary was born without original sin. inscape of the sky or sea I thought of Scotus.' 1. In Extreme Unction (the sacrament for the 2. Hopkins contrasts the 'here' of the 'grey dying.) beauty' of the medieval city of Oxford, where 2. Holy Communion preceded by confession and country and town are both protected ('coped,' as absolution. within a priest's cloak) and in equilibrium ('poised 3. In whatever way.
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[CARRION COMFORT] / 1521
This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears. 10 My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years, When thou at the random4 grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle0 for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering prepare
sandal!
1880 1918
Spring and Fall:1 to a young child 5io15Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wan wood leafmeal2 lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sorrow's springs are the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost0 guessed: It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for. spirit 1880 1918
[Carrion Comfort]1
Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee,2 Not untwist?slack they may be?these last strands of man In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
5 But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world right foot rock?3 lay a lionlimb against me? scan
4. Built with stones of irregular size and shape. is filtered through the leaves. 1. This deceptively simple poem is deeply in-1. This title was supplied by Bridges. The poem is formed by Christian theology: according to Cath-one of the 'terrible sonnets,' as are the three fololic doctrine, the fall of Adam and Eve brought into lowing poems. the world both mortality and the legacy of Original 2. The satisfaction of giving in to despair as a kind Sin for all human beings ('the blight man was born of 'comfort' is implicitly likened to a vulture's sat- for'). isfaction in feasting on dead flesh. 2. Coined by analogy with piecemeal. 'Wan-3. I.e., why would you roughly rock me with your wood': pale or dim; the forest maybe pale because world-wringing right foot? of light-colored autumn leaves or dim because light
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15 18 / GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised 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,4 sheer and clear. 10 Nay in all that toil, that coil,? since (seems) 1 kissed the rod, tumult Hand rather,' my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer. Cheer whom though? The Hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod 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. 1885 1918
No worst, there is none
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
5 My cries heave, herds-long;1 huddle in a main, a chief- woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing? Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No lingering! Let me be fell: force2 I must be brief.' O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
io Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small Durance0 deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, endurance Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
1885 1918
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day
I wake and feel the fell0 of dark, not day. bitterness 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
4. Metaphors of winnowing, or removing the 17. empty husks ('chaff') that are blown away from 5. I.e., the hand that wields the rod. the valuable grain that remains, appear frequently 1. Like the succession of cries made by cattle that in the Bible to represent the separation of virtue have been following one another in a long line. from wickedness. See, e.g., Psalm 1.4, Luke 3.16? 2. Necessarily, inevitably. 'Fell': fierce.
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THAT NATURE IS A HERACLITEAN FIRE / 1523
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 10 Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; Bones
