Mystic Monday: Vacation Edition Part II Gerard Manley Hopkins

Today dear children since I am on vacation -- although I had a workout this morning and did laundry and read two chapters of homework, so it doesn't feel much like vacation at this very moment -- I have decided that I can take a little detour from our regular visits with the mystics and branch out a bit. Last week we explored a bit of wisdom from Karl Rahner, and this week I want to share with you this beautiful bit of poetry from my favorite poet Gerard Manley Hopkins who might be considered a mystic, but probably doesn't qualify, but this is my blog and my vacation, so there.

So, here is one of my favorite Hopkins poems.

I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day
by 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.

Pax