I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark

Gerard Manley Hopkins

 I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day,
   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
   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.

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