My Prayers Must Meet A Brazen Heaven

Gerard Manley Hopkins

My prayers must meet a brazen heaven
And fail and scatter all away.
Unclean and seeming unforgiven
My prayers I scarcely call to pray.
I cannot buoy my heart above;
Above I cannot entrance win.
I reckon precedents of love,
But feel the long success of sin.

My heaven is brass and iron my earth:
Yea, iron is mingled with my clay,
So harden'd is it in this dearth
Which praying fails to do away.
Nor tears, nor tears this clay uncouth
Could mould, if any tears there were.
A warfare of my lips in truth,
Battling with God, is now my prayer. 

Next 10 Poems

• Gerard Manley Hopkins : No Worst, There Is None
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : On The Portrait Of Two Beautiful Young People
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Peace
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Penmaen Pool
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Pied Beauty
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Repeat That, Repeat
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Ribblesdale
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Spelt From Sibyl's Leaves

Previous 10 Poems

• Gerard Manley Hopkins : My Own Heart Let Me Have More Have Pity On; Let
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Morning Midday And Evening Sacrifice
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Moonrise
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Moonless Darkness Stands Between
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : May Magnificat
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Love Preparing To Fly
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Let Me Be To Thee As The Circling Bird
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : Inversnaid
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : In The Valley Of The Elwy
• Gerard Manley Hopkins : In Honour Of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez