The Mind

I wake and feel the fell of dark

by Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844–1889

From Poems (1918)

The Mind

I WAKE and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs 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.

MLA

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “I wake and feel the fell of dark.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/hopkins/44/.

Chicago

Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “I wake and feel the fell of dark.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/hopkins/44/.

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