I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day

"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what lack 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 saw
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him the 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." (778)

I have read this poem at least ten times already and every time I think I have begun to understand it, something changes my mind. During readings one through five, I had the impression that the speaker was pleased with the fact that he was not one of the "souls in Hell," finding himself saved from such a fate. However, the end of the poem claims that he feels worse than the "lost." This was my first conclusion: The pain he felt on earth was greater than the pain that he could feel in hell, although he knew that he was in the better situation. After readings five through ten, though, the short poem felt much more complex than that.

The speaker complains of a continual darkness and his inability to awake to "day." He continues on about the "hours" that rap away in his mind, calling them "black." "And my lament is cries countless" is a heavy statement. He implies that he can't stop crying out about being alive in these dark "hours." This is not exactly the sort of poetic rambling that you would expect from a priest, such as Gerard Manley Hopkins.

In Hopkins' biography, there is a long discussion about his time spent away from poetry so that he could further himself within the church. It mentions that when he received his ordination into the priesthood, he was so overjoyed that he couldn't keep himself from writing a couple of sonnets. After reading this poem, one gets the sense that maybe Hopkins wasn't entirely happy in his clergy position. The poem is so dark with hopelessness in what one would normally think as the ultimate position of hope: the clergy.

"...cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away."

To whom is he writing these "dead letters?" At first, I though that Hopkins meant to imply that he was sending pleas to God. However, he doesn't go along with the traditional practice of capitalizing "him." This may be a fairly insignificant aspect of the poem, but it stuck with me. The idea of a letter, a plea, or a request being "dead" is fairly disturbing. What does it mean? When I think of "dead," I think of something that is empty, lifeless, or limp. When we send a "dead" message, maybe we are already aware of the fact that our plea will do no good or have no real outcome. The speaker (which we can assume is Hopkins) sends his "dead letters" to whomever will listen, knowing full well that nothing will come of his requests. He feels stuck, trapped in the hours and "dark days" that follow him.

What does it mean when someone in the clergy feels trapped within an earthly prison? It's a hopeless poem, it seems, with the speaker claiming that he is absolutely miserable in his circumstances. If there is no hope for contentment in the church, where does one find it?

I think that these are very broad questions to ask, but within the context of this poem, they seem like they are inevitably stirred.

I wonder when it's time to "get personal" with the actual poet. Should we really take into account Hopkins' life when reading a poem such as this? Are we to assume that it is actually him speaking? When do we know the difference? Is it even possible to know? Attaching an actual person to the piece makes for such an interesting history. In this case, we know the writer's personality and past. However, it is also interesting when we do not know such background information. This adds a mystery to the poem, leaving us to fill in the blanks. I'm not sure if I have a preference between the two. I think it's fascinating to imagine Hopkins' writing this poem from his position of religious influence. It's also really something to picture a man summing up his religious doubts and depressions in only two short stanzas.

Despite the fact that it's hard to pin-point the drive behind this poem, it certainly was meant to be read aloud. I took a few turns at reading it aloud, listening to my voice and the sounds that the paired words made. Then I asked a friend to read it aloud. Listening to a voice other than one's own makes you realize the amount of pushing that is required when speaking through a line of alliteration. Particularly with the plosive and fricative consonant sounds, it's almost a struggle to "spit" out each word. This makes the the poem seems just as frustrating to write as it is to read aloud. Frustration, in most cases, causes one to be so overwhelmed with incapabilities or failures that it becomes difficult to think and communicate clearly. This is certainly reflected in the poem.

"Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours."

Try reciting these two lines "sweetly."